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DrScottHartman β Remember the (adult) Alamosaurus
Published: 2013-05-07 19:11:47 +0000 UTC; Views: 13715; Favourites: 149; Downloads: 0
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Description
Ok, here is the updated Alamosaurus featuring the adult cervical series recently mounted in Dallas. While more derived the new neck makes Alamosaurus look a bit like earlier titanosaurs such as Futalognkosaurus (at least superficially). The scale bar has been updated to the (quite large) size of the Dallas specimen, and I've reposed the skeletal to the new sauropod pose. The half grown reconstruction can still be found here: [link]Alamosaurus is actually named after the Ojo Alamo Formation, not the tourist trap in Texas. Otherwise a fairly normal (if gigantic) Late Cretaceous titanosaur, and one you can actually draw interacting with T. rex!
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Comments: 74
Dunno if you heard about this, but apparently Mike Habib thinks that all specimens attributed to Alamosaurus except for the holotype isn't actually Alamosaurus proper, and they all belong to different taxa spanning over a time of around 5 million years, according to his presentation at this year's SVPCA meeting; for more details you probably could contact him or (who talked about this in a Discord server). Any thoughts?
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Errr, just clearing up a few things here. First, the Alamosaurus holotype is just a scapula and none of the currently published "Alamosaur" remains have a scapula to compare to it. It's entirely possible that all the material is from Alamosaurus, there's just no way to prove it. Either way, as Scott said, this diagram is mostly based off of theΒ Dallas specimen, which is very well-preserved and consists of a large portion of a titanosaur, so this skeletal is at least accurate to that specimen. Other unpublished material which does overlap with the Dallas specimen seems to be from more individualsΒ of the same taxon, but none can be confidently assigned to Alamosaurus without another scapula associated with one of these specimens.
Second, this wasn't presented at SVPCA, this was presented as part of a speaker series at the Los Angeles Natural History Museum for museum staff and volunteers. Also, while this information was new to me during the talk, it appears to be relatively common knowledge among North American sauropod workers (although correct me if I'm wrong).
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welp, that's a major-fuck up on my part 
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I appreciate the concern, but RaptorX863 summed it up well. Although taxonomy is important, at a certain level with skeletals I don't really care as long as I get the anatomy right, since it'll just translate to a new name equally well.
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How can we be sure that all these fragmentary, scattered remains all belong to the same taxon? For instance, could the difference between the subadult and adult cervicals actually be due to them being different taxa?Β
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It could be, but the ontogenetic stage is pretty far apart, so there's no a priori reason to do so. And although the remains are scattered, there's also overlap of apomorphies between the better specimens. That said, the gigantic Mexican tibia chunks referred to Alamosaurus could just as easily be some other giant titanosaur (though, to be fair, such large animals would have large ranges, and there tend to be fewer of them existing at any one time, so it's not unreasonableΒ to suspect they are the same).
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i animate accurate dinosaurs. would you like to check them out?
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The description of the Perot Museum cervical series has been published!
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/1β¦
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I saw that. I'll have to see if there are any updates needed for the skeletal.
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How long and heavy would Alamosaurus be?
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The short answer is "damned big", the longer answer is "hold that thought for a couple months."
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I mostly hear 20-30 meters. I don't know about weight,im assuming at least 30 tonnes.
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I think the average Alamosaurus is about 40 tonnes. The biggest individuals up to 60+ tons.
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Yep. Titanosaurs are the wierdest of longnecks (a famous LBT term). Don't wanna mess with 'em when solitary bulls are in musth
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Actually, given how much of sauropod taxonomic diversity they represent, titanosaurs are probably the most normal of longnecks, it's just that we found the weirdos first (especially diplodocids, which really only flourish during a limited slice of time in the late Jurassic). Also, musth it pretty much an elephant-specific thing. Sometimes it's attributed to the hormone surge in male camels, but that seems to actually be associated with mating behavior, while the phenomena in elephants is not so clearly tied to mating, and may actually be a unique adaptation for establishing male elephant dominance hierarchies.
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True that. IMO, only allosauroids and abelisaurids can challenge a full-grown sauropod.
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To a game of checkers? Lots of allosauroid and especially abelisaurid species were probably too small to attack full-grown sauropods, and there's no reason to doubt that large megalosaurs or tyrannosaurs were unable to do so. I would agree that Allosaurus and carcharodontosaurs do seem to have been specialized for attacking sauropods, but specialization just means you are more efficient at doing something, not that other theropods couldn't do it. Spinosaurs, for example, seem to have a lot of specializations for fish eating, but that doesn't mean say Coelophysis or Velociraptor couldn't catch a fish if they were hungry and fish were available.
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My apologies. Such a big hunt would require extensive patience.
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Out of curiousity, and if you know, how common were sauropods in the Northern Hemisphere during the Cretaceous?Β It seems that when we talk about sauropods in this time period, they are all concentrated in South America and Africa, but there's not much said about any that lived in North America and Eurasia during this time.Β A few are mentioned, like Alamosaurus here and the dwarf Magyarosaurus from "Hateg Island," but there doesn't seem to be much information on other species in the Northern Hemisphere during the Cretaceous.
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Sauropods in Asia were pretty successful--euhelopodids/basal titanosaurs, Nemegtosaurus (which might include Opisthocoelicaudia), and various stuff of variously ambiguous phylogenetic placement (Yongjinglong, for example).Β Europe had quite a few titanosaurs, as well--Lirainosaurus, Ampelosaurus, Paludititan, and Atsinganosaurus to name a few. Really, North America is the only part of the world where there was a definite major lack of sauropods for most of the Cretaceous. However, it's true that nowhere was as sauropod-dominated in the Cretaceous as South America.
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Western North America appears to have actually lost sauropods for a while (the sauropod "gap"), and Alamosaurus may never have spread very far north. As you note their are sauropods "here and there" in the rest of the northern hemisphere, but they clearly are far behind the diversity seen in the southern hemisphere.
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I'll be visiting relatives in Dallas over Thanksgiving this year, so I'll be seeing this beastie while I'm there.
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Hmm Scott, do you know if there is any way to determine which Tyrannosaurus specimens lived in the same region as Alamosaurus? If so, I would be very interested if there was any trends with regards to their skull size.
Of the 4 specimens you have reconstructed, there are the big-headed Sue and Stan, and the small-headed AMNH 5027 and CM 9380... but there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it.
Of course more specimens being restored would help (I hope MOR 980 and MOR 555 are still in the pipeline of future releases!), but these 4 specimens don't show any trend in terms of age, total size or body morph (robust vs. gracile); the two old, large robust morphs have completely different skull sizes relative to body size, and the same is true of the two young, small(er) gracile morphs...
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Alamosaurus is really an incredible dinosaur. Just 4 questions, sir: could it reach 30 meters long?
How tall was it? How heavy was it? It was really a saltasaur?
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Those aren't the easiest of questions.
1) I'm working on that right now (literally).
2) See number 1 (I should have a post up later today).
3) I'm not doing mass estimates right now, as I don't have time to do either a volumetric model or a double integration. Sorry!
4)It seems to be a saltasaurid, but not a saltasaurine.
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Well, thank you very much sir.
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I now have some more specific numbers. Of the three specimens described by Fowler & Sullivan, the cervical and caudal seem to be almost exactly the same size as the new mounted specimen in Dallas (which I've already scaled this skeletal to), while the femur appears to be 10-15% shorter.
So assuming this is now around the largest known Alamosaurus, it could crane it's head back to almost 12 meters high, and has a length of around 26 meters - both quite large, but not record-breakingly so.
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This Alamosaurus adult looks so bulked up in the neck. I challenge any T.rex within twenty feet of me to challenge one of these
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Grandpa Rex will challenge him if he gets a giant PIZZA!
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Haha, a giant pizza eh? 
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Pepperoni and SAUSAGE! With bell PEPPERS!!! Grandpa Rex wants extra toppings! Then watch out Alamosaurus!!!!!
Though I would not put it past Grandpa Rex to bribe the Alamosaurus to take a fall with a vegetarian pizza!
Right, Grandpa?
Hey, Scott! What sort of veggies d'ya think Alamosaurus would want on his pizza?
Hmmmmm....I GOTTA draw a pic of this!
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ummm...Bryan, okay I um...Alamosaurus veggies...um...does he like um, garlic? or...how about go traditional and add some redwood and magnolia leaves
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Grandpa Tyler Rex says, "Sonny? If redwood and magnolia leaves'll make me the winner, I'll put double portions on!" "Now where can I get those things? We got dem maggy-nolias here in Forida, but redwoods! Dem trees is in Cally-fornia!"
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"Den what trees is in Florida, Grandpa Rex?"
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Well, sonny, we got pines, oaks, magnolias, and cedars, as well as cabbage palms and other kinds. Got lotsa scrub, plains, and forests. But no pizza trees, durn it!
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Those are some massive ridges on the neck vertebrae.
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Yes they certainly are! Alamosaurus would have been one thick-necked sauropod.
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Any chances they would have had gigantic keratinous "axe-heads" sticking out, connected to those ridges?
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Connected? Not directly, no. That said, in at least some hadrosaurs there are developmental correlations where dermal spines are 1:1 with neural spines, and in Diplodocus there are keratinous spines in the skin (but again not attached directly to the neural spine) so it's not impossible that Alamosaurus could have had skin spines that also coincided with the neural spines. But that said, the size and shape of the neural spines would have been due to functional needs, not related to any potential dermal elements.
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Oh, well. Wishful thinking.
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How big was it , my description gives a length of 120 feet.
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According to my measurements the specimen above (with the neck scaled to the size of the mounted specimen in Dallas) is 27.8 meters, or a bit over 91 feet. Which is outrageously long for a non-diplodocid, although it probably isn't as big as the largest fragmentary specimen (I think I can actually scale that one, so I'll check it out when I have some time).
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How was big Alamosaurus (Fowler and Sullivan material)if compare to your reconstruction? or if compare to gian tibis 170 cm long- 2006 material.
Sorry for my bad english
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Give me a couple days and I'll answer that more precisely than just posting a number.
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Ok. I'm really interested. Please send me priv message if you calculated this.
Best!
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It looks like the large fragmentary specimens are the same size as the mounted specimen in Dallas (which is also the scale on this skeletal). So Alamosaurus is huge, but not a record-breaker.
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RIVERA-SYLVA, GUZMAN-GUTIΓRREZ, & PALOMINO-SΓNCHEZ. Preliminary Report on a vertebrate fossil assemblage from the Late Cretaceous of Chihuahua, Mexico. HANTKENIANA 5 (2006)
170 cm tibia specimen too? in your reconstruction tibia have~ 140 cm?.
Sorry for my bad english
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