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| Steppe Rhinoceros v Tyrannosaurus rex | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Feb 10 2012, 06:44 PM (33,461 Views) | |
| Taipan | Feb 10 2012, 06:44 PM Post #1 |
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Steppe Rhinoceros - Elasmotherium caucasicum Elasmotherium ("Thin Plate Beast") is an extinct genus of giant rhinoceros endemic to Eurasia during the Late Pliocene through the Pleistocene, documented from 2.6 mya to as late as 50,000 years ago, possibly later, in the Late Pleistocene, an approximate span of slightly less than 2.6 million years. Three species are recognised. The best known, E. sibiricum was the size of a mammoth and is thought to have borne a large, thick horn on its forehead which was used for defense, attracting mates, driving away competitors, sweeping snow from the grass in winter and digging for water and plant roots. Like all rhinoceroses, elasmotheres were herbivorous. Unlike any others, its high-crowned molars were ever-growing. Its legs were longer than those of other rhinos and were designed for galloping, giving it a horse-like gait. The Russian paleontologists of the 19th century who discovered and named the initial fossils were influenced by ancient legends of a huge unicorn roaming the steppes of Siberia. To date no evidence either contradicts or confirms the possibility that Elasmotherium survived into legendary times. The most reconstructed species is perhaps E. sibiricum by generations of scientists working at the Paleontological Museum in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia. The majority of the fossils fall or have fallen within their national jurisdiction. The dimensions and morphology of the various reconstructions vary considerably. They are for the most part estimating the gross details from the minutiae. However, they all agree on the general order of magnitude, that sibiricum was comparable to a Mammoth and was rather larger than the contemporary Woolly Rhinoceros. E. sibiricum had a measured shoulder height of approximately 2 metres (6.6 ft). To it, however, must be added the height of a massive hump anchored on the fin-like transverse processes extending from the top of the cervical vertebrae, a maximum of 53 centimetres (1.74 ft). The total height then was in excess of 253 centimetres (8.30 ft). The measured length of sibiricum (from a nearly complete skeleton found at Gaevskaya) is 4.5 metres (15 ft). Extrapolation from the greater size of caucasicum molars obtains a length of 5 metres (16 ft)—5.2 metres (17 ft) for caucasicum. According to Legendre's formula, E. sibiricum had a mass of over 4,000 kilograms (3.9 long tons; 4.4 short tons); E. caucasicum, 5,000 kilograms (4.9 long tons; 5.5 short tons). These weights place Elasmotherium in the "really huge" category of all Rhinocerotidae and therefore the animal was "strongly brachyopodial;" that is, they required feet of large contact area to prevent sinking into the soil. The feet were unguligrade, the front larger than the rear: purely tridactyl on Digits II-IV in the rear, but with an extra vestigial digit, I, in the front. ![]() Tyrannosaurus rex Tyrannosaurus is a genus of coelurosaurian theropod dinosaur. The species Tyrannosaurus rex (rex meaning "king" in Latin), commonly abbreviated to T. rex, is a fixture in popular culture. It lived throughout what is now western North America, with a much wider range than other tyrannosaurids. Fossils are found in a variety of rock formations dating to the Maastrichtian age of the upper Cretaceous Period, 67 to 65.5 million years ago. It was among the last non-avian dinosaurs to exist before the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. Like other tyrannosaurids, Tyrannosaurus was a bipedal carnivore with a massive skull balanced by a long, heavy tail. Relative to the large and powerful hindlimbs, Tyrannosaurus forelimbs were small, though unusually powerful for their size, and bore two clawed digits. Although other theropods rivaled or exceeded Tyrannosaurus rex in size, it was the largest known tyrannosaurid and one of the largest known land predators. By far the largest carnivore in its environment, Tyrannosaurus rex may have been an apex predator, preying upon hadrosaurs and ceratopsians, although some experts have suggested it was primarily a scavenger. The debate over Tyrannosaurus as apex predator or scavenger is among the longest running in paleontology. Tyrannosaurus rex was one of the largest land carnivores of all time; the largest complete specimen, FMNH PR2081 ("Sue"), measured 12.8 metres (42 ft) long, and was 4.0 metres (13.1 ft) tall at the hips. Mass estimates have varied widely over the years, from more than 7.2 metric tons (7.9 short tons), to less than 4.5 metric tons (5.0 short tons), with most modern estimates ranging between 5.4 and 6.8 metric tons (6.0 and 7.5 short tons). Packard et al. (2009) tested dinosaur mass estimation procedures on elephants and concluded that dinosaur estimations are flawed and produce over-estimations; thus, the weight of Tyrannosaurus could be much less than usually estimated. Other estimations have concluded that the largest known Tyrannosaurus specimens had a weight exceeding 9 tonnes. ![]() _____________________________________________________________
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| The Reptile | Jul 15 2014, 12:26 PM Post #91 |
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Herbivore
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Which description said so? If many reconstructions are accurate, then that would actually mean that elasmotherium was MORE stocky/bulky than modern rhino species and not the other way around. Either way though, most derived rhinoceros genera are still very powerful and robust animals. But tyrannosaurid speciality in hunting horned ceratopsians might be sufficient (given that they were potentially the best reptilian analogy with any modern rhinoceros species) |
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| Submit name request | Jul 15 2014, 12:44 PM Post #92 |
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Herbivore
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I referred to the "description above", that being the description given by taipan in the opening post. It described the steppe rhinoceros as having long legs designed for galloping. It seems to be significantly taller and longer than a max sized white rhino (4,500kg), but in comparison the weight difference seems less marked. I am not at all an expert of extinct species, and I am happy to be corrected. |
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| The Reptile | Jul 15 2014, 12:46 PM Post #93 |
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Herbivore
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I am not extinct mammal expert either, but modern rhinos can actually be pretty fast, so being designed for "galloping" (whatever that is supposed to mean... Like a horse?) seems like an incomplete statement to me. Unless they have true evidence of its actual bodily proportions, we can not be sure as to whether or not it was more gracile. For all we know these "impressively long legs" could have been proportionally shorter than those of modern rhinos which would have only make elasmotherium much larger! |
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| blaze | Jul 15 2014, 12:48 PM Post #94 |
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Carnivore
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Elasmotherium had a proportionally longer tibia and metapodials (metacarpals and metatarsals) than modern rhinos making it somewhat "long legged", most reconstructions out there either ignore it or in the case of mounted skeletons, they have the legs too flexed and the ribs too vertical, hiding the long lower legs. |
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| The Reptile | Jul 15 2014, 11:26 PM Post #95 |
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Herbivore
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But do we actually have true evidence that the creature's actual body was more slender/gracile than that of modern rhinos? Having longer tibiae would not imply that it possessed proportionally longer legs to body depth |
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| blaze | Jul 15 2014, 11:36 PM Post #96 |
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Carnivore
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Assuming equal proportions of the torso both its longer tibiae and metapotials will gave it longer legs, but as far as I know the skeleton of Elasmotherium remains largely undescribed, supposedly there's an almost complete skeleton found in 1964 but it has not been described in any scientific publication yet. |
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| The Reptile | Jul 16 2014, 12:02 PM Post #97 |
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Herbivore
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Longer legs would not make its actual body shape (as in the neck-torso; discludes the head, limbs, and tail) more gracile in itself, but that would definitely make it less stout |
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| blaze | Jul 16 2014, 02:47 PM Post #98 |
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Carnivore
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You are correct on that, I originally misunderstood Liquor Box's comment. |
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| Grimace | Jul 16 2014, 04:31 PM Post #99 |
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Kleptoparasite
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Isn't it thought rex would try to bite animals with horns and break the horn, or was that a myth? if thats true, the rhino would be pretty screwed. |
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| Sleipnir | Oct 13 2014, 11:51 AM Post #100 |
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Steed of the Deathless
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I can only say that if a T. rex can chip off a piece of a triceratops horn, which is made of bone, there is 110% possibility that it could do that 3 times faster to this giant rhino's horn, which by the way is made of keratin, the same substance composing human hair.This is b/c of the fact that the rhino's horn is made of keratin, not bone. If T. rex can chip off pieces of the horns of its mortal enemy (triceratops), then why can't it snap the horn of this prehistoric rhino? Several tons of bite force will no doubt break the keratin horn. Edited by Sleipnir, Oct 13 2014, 11:55 AM.
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| blaze | Oct 13 2014, 12:39 PM Post #101 |
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Carnivore
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Claws are also made of keratin and the covering of all horns is keratin too. |
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| Ceratodromeus | Oct 13 2014, 12:41 PM Post #102 |
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Aspiring herpetologist
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because T.rex probably didn't go snapping off the horns of a trike willy-nilly. we don't have evidence that it targeted the ceratopsians brow horns as a way of dispatching them..as a matter of fact, it would steer clear of the horns as much as it could. as for this match, i'm leaning towards the tyrannosaur here |
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| Ausar | Oct 13 2014, 01:17 PM Post #103 |
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Xi-miqa-can! Xi-miqa-can! Xi-miqa-can!
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If what blaze once wrote is right, Elasmotherium isn't that large. He even questioned the functionality the supposed 2m horn would have been in combat (if it wasn't that large and it still had a 2m horn (though I wonder if the horn would decrease in size dimensionally), it would certainly be very disproportionate)... I still think Elasmotherium sounds like a cool creature and all though, but maybe in a different way, a rhino with a horn that big would still be a cool (and rather funny-looking) creature. |
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| blaze | Oct 14 2014, 06:18 AM Post #104 |
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Carnivore
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This is how I imagine Elasmotherium to be based on what I could get from Guerin (1980). It is possible I might have made the metacarpals/metatarsals too long. ![]() I left the big horn because that's how Deng et al. (2013) represented it (roughly 1.4m long in the small one) but as Ausar mentioned, I have previously questioned if such a big horn was present on the basis of male modern rhinos rarely having horns over 60cm long, all the 1m+ horn records belong to females. The small one has an skull 98cm long, the relative size of the head is based on modern rhinos, it's femur and tibia roughly correspond with the specimen mentioned by Guerin (1980), the grey one is based solely on teeth, the largest teeth as far as I know, of E. caucasicum, it's skull is 110cm long. Edited by blaze, Mar 11 2015, 12:28 AM.
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| Submit name request | Oct 14 2014, 06:36 AM Post #105 |
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Herbivore
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On that scale, it looks like the horn is so long as to be impractical ina fight. A long horn would take longer to swivel to face attacking threats. Similar to how smilodons have teeth that are less practical in fights than modern cats. |
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