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DrScottHartman — Sauropod-whale face off
Published: 2014-07-24 04:28:21 +0000 UTC; Views: 19728; Favourites: 218; Downloads: 0
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You can read more about this here: www.skeletaldrawing.com/home/s… The short version is that sauropods like Supersaurus and maybe the longest titanosaurs grew to lengths that exceeded the longest known blue whales, but that whales massively out-mass all known sauropods (notice that "known" requires actual repeatable evidence). Also, Diplodocus isn't as pathetic as some might think, since the largest specimen (formerly known as Seismosaurus) almost gives Supersaurus a run for its money in terms of length.Related content
Comments: 178
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If I can be honest, the Blue Whale seems a bit small compared to a person... It may be large, but it isn't tall.
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Just take a look at the blue whale and see that, despite being massive, it is not tall at all as tall as the Sauropods.
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For sure not. But it's a lot more massive (too massive probably - it should probably be a tad bit narrower, but this is a really well fed critter).
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Hi Mr Scott!
So the biggest Supersaurus cervical C9 could be a Barosaurus lentus (a really really big one if the SVPOW team is right).
But what about Supersaurus itself? Jimbo (which your skeletal is based on I suppose) looks pretty different...
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Actually I don't think the BYU C9 is Barosaurus, but it's not impossible. That's a discussion for another day.
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I really hope we'll find new, more complete remains of dinosaurs like the plagne diplodocoid, A.fragillimus, Broome titanosaur and ''B.nougaredi''...
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Hopefully, though the Broome "titanosaur" is just a set of trackways, and I don't think any of these trackways indicate sauropods larger than what are already known from skeletal remains. "B. nougaredi's" size depends on whether or not the phylogenetic ID of an uncollected fossils was even right, and you already know the story of A. fragillimus. I think it would be really cool of one of these fabled uber-sauropods turned out to be real (and really huge) but at this point I don't have much faith in any of them.
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I don't have much faith in most of them either, but I really think such a huge sauropod, or even larger, would be able to function well enough to sustain it's population.
I mean, they evolved to be the biggest land creatures ever.
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I don't think there's a biomechanical issue that would prevent it, but there might be a population ecology and genetics issue. The larger you are the more space you need in order to support enough individuals for a stable population. Dinosaur life history strategies may have let them extend this a bit (by having a larger number of subadult or juvenile members in a population) but at some point they'd still run into a limit.
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Yes. the only question is: Where does that limit lie?
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Everybody forgets good old mega-sauropod Amphicoelias fragillimus
İt really has the size of a blue whale; Dreadnoughts are also big too but Fragillimus is immense
Great comprassion by the way Diplodocus is my favourite sauropod
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As mentioned elsewhere, A. fragillimus isn't usually included in serious scientific discussion because; 1) the original fossil was far too fragmentary to begin with, 2) the original fossil was lost after its initial discovery and description before it could undergo a more thorough study, and 3) (admittedly a personal theory), it's discoverer, Edwin Cope, while definitely a capable scientist, had a (admittedly petty) reason to exaggerate its dimensions (damn Bone Wars...)
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Understood; thanks for the info
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Amphicoelias fragillimus is not included in this comparison because its material (a drawing and short description of a partial neural complex) was deemed insufficient.
Based on the measurement reported back then (Cope 1878) and if it is a valid new species, it would indeed rival the blue whale in size. Carpenter (2006) envisioned it as a giant version of Diplodocus, and estimated its mass at over 120t (bigger than the average blue whale by over 20t).
That paper you were prompted to look at actually corroborates this gigantism, and would imply an even more titanic size for the specimen, but they speculate that the given measurement was in fact a typographical error.
They concede themselves that this is "historically unsupported and speculative" though, the evidence they present based on other reported measurements does not really support this (on the whole, they are pretty much equally far off when measured in either scaling of the specimen, which implies more about how difficult it is to identify the right landmarks in the drawing than it does about the size of the specimen), and indeed it is not even published yet and should not lead us to jump to conclusions.
Anyway, I think the reasoning behind excluding such a case from a size chart that mostly consists of completely restored skeletons is understandable.
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Yeah. There's the problem that Carpenter's estimate uses a GSP (ie King of shrink wrapping) Diplodocus as a basis resulting in a low 122.4 tonne estimate. Assuming he and Cope were right about the bone proportions and ratios, that would mean ~150 tonnes may be plausible if Amphicoelias really was a giant. There's also the giant Apatosaurus to take into account of course.
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I don’t actually have a problem with that mass estimate, perhaps GSP did shrinkwrap the Diplodocus somewhat, but in exchange it should probably have an even lower density than he assumed, so it might actually end up even lighter. On the other hand, assuming Diplodocus-like proportions as Carpenter did, the vertebra is actually proportionately too tall. So really Carpenter’s mass estimate is far from being overly liberal, despite being 20 above blue-whale size. Of course there’s a strong case to be made that Amphicoelias should look quite different from Diplodocus based on its relationships and what bones are known of the smaller species, probably meaning a shorter, bulkier animal, but the proportions are well-nigh impossible to figure out with reasonable amounts of certainty with the little material we have. All we can say is that unless the measurements reported for that vertebra were really just typos this is the biggest sauropod known from body fossils and ends up at least in blue-whale territory when applying relatively cautious methods to extrapolate its size.
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Well; fossils are extremelly Rare so finding another fossil might be İmpossible !
And its know that Sauropods could reach sizes like that; also Most Dinosaurs species aren't even discovered.
I understand it could be A misfinding but even A slightest possiblity makes this A whole new interesting case !
I really want to believe this big saurpods might be real; but ı am open to any Truth too
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No Amphicoelias was likely smaller than usually thought
peerj.com/preprints/838.pdf
and even the former estimates do equal the largest blue whales in mass.
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Amphicoelias's mass didn't make sense to me in the beginning.
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There is Two Species actually; I mean the Amphicoelias fragillimus
So; that means a Land animal can grow large as a Blue Whale; and overthrown the Blue !
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I obviously refer to A. fragillimus, and no it was not larger (heavier) than a blue whale, did you take the time to read my link ?
peerj.com/preprints/838.pdf
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By its diplodocus like head shape it is (slightly but still is) larger than Blue But only slightly; thanks for that link by the way I am not sure about is it heavier than the Blue; I am sure now
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The link explains the estimates are most likely huge overstatements. And even using the former estimates, it is still not a match for the blue whales which reach 200 tonnes.
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İt is; indeed; could be huge estimates but it can't be sure unless more fossils found (which really is hard) however that makes any speculations open
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Hi Scott! Your work is a wonderful example of the inherent aesthetic beauty of scientific illustration, and I think your composition of the Sauropods and the Blue Whale is particularly moving... for all the glory of dinosaurs, it's quite astonishing to think we have the privilege right now, existing in a mere instant of geological time, to share the planet with the largest animal that has ever lived. It's even more poignant to think that the Blue Whale's continued survival may depend on our own will and ability as a species to allow it to do so.
Anyway, I hope this isn't an obvious question, but is there any way to buy a print of this image from you for framing? I couldn't seem to find any reference to this sort of thing on your web-site, and I'm not sure if it can be done through deviant art?
Thanking you for your time, John.
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Thanks John. I've enabled this image to be a print for sale, but as I warned elsewhere there will be an updated version of this in the coming months, so acquire at your own risk (or preference).
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Meh,It's only 40 tonnes.
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On the list of skeletals I wish I had time to do.
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How far do you think we can speculate with regards to species such as Amphicoelias and Bruhathkayosaurus? Do you think it's feasible that there may have been 200+ foot sauropods?
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You can speculate as much as you want, but we can't do science with either specimen, since they're lost to science. That's why I don't include them, as there's quite literally nothing to include. As far as 200 foot sauropods go...I don't think there's a biomechanical limit, but I suspect there are other limits (population size, time till adulthood, and several others) that probably discouraged sauropods from truly approaching biomechanical limits (whatever those turn out to be). So how big? The chart above basically covers what we have evidence for; hopefully new discoveries will illuminate the issue.
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I think the only reason whales are winning over in terms of largest known specimens by a large gap here is simply because there's more known whale specimens then sauropod specimens, so they display a larger apparent size range.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we got more living blue whales than we got sauropod specimens of all discovered genera combined...
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Modern estimates put the heaviest known sauropods at around 70-75 tons. The largest blue whales are at least around 210 tons, almost certainly heavier. Sauropods double the weight of current ones aren't that out there, but three times would only get them on par (and also keep in the whales are probably even heavier then this). So we'd need species around 4-5 times the weight of the largest known specimens today. Take of this what you will.
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The ~70-75 tonne estimates are mainly for the more well-known large titanosaurians such as Argentinosaurus and it's kin. There are footprints such as the ones in Plagne and Broome that indicate far larger sauropods, possibly somewhere between ~100-200 tonnes depending on how you estimate their size.
Also, "Brachiosaurus" nougaredi, which is known from an enormous incomplete sacrum already ~1.45 meters long, would be around ~120+ tonnes or even more if scaled from Brachiosaurus altithorax and/or Giraffatitan.
The largest blue was a fat one with a mass of ~190 tonnes, and is roughly double the mass of an average specimen(around ~90ish tonnes according to this source: biol.wwu.edu/mbel/media/pdfs/C… ).
Adding poorly-known specimens and ichnotaxa to the mix reduces the gap considerably to the point where the largest known sauropods and the largest whales get surprisingly close in size.
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Yes, the fragments and ichnites certainly indicate bigger taxa then we have reasonable skeletons for, or are just well known. But fragments and ichnites also indicate Brachiosaurs in the latest Cretaceous and 4m tall ornithopods in Jurassic Portugal. Not to say they're untrustworthy... but look at what we now know of Spinosaurus and Deinocherius compared to what their original fragments would indicate. Besides, 200 ton estimates for even these taxa are probably to high.
Yes, I've heard of "B." nougaredi, but it's probably not even brachiosaur, and even within the family proportions vary. We really don't know what it is, and what it was built like, so there's frankly no reasonable way to estimate size. So it could be giant, but it's just as likely it's within current sizes, or just above.
The estimates I've heard were 210+ tons for the largest weighed specimen, probably heavier because it had to be weighed in pieces. Lets also account that we'll likely never determine, or weigh, the largest living whale, and that they're declining from hunting, so the largest individuals have died out, and that probability would say it's likely we don't live at the same time as the largest whale, significantly larger individuals could have existed thousands of years ago.
So we've got around 150 tons max compared to almost certainly over 210 tons, with probability against fragments of sauropods being big but for the largest known whales not being the biggest. I don't think there's much competition.
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Spinosaurus didn't actually change much in size and Deinocheirus was actually upsized(Greg Paul estimated it at ~2 tonnes in 2010). The 200-tonne estimates can be attained using methods that are quite liberal towards larger sizes, they could be taken as the uppermost bounds.
The ~4-meter tall ornithopods(~4.13 meter to be exact) is an overestimate that the abstract used for some reason. The paper said that a hip height of just under 3 meters is more likely. Here: www.academia.edu/388823/Ichnol…
We're just going by the largest whale actually weighted(the ~190-tonne one, your ~210 tons is short tons, I'm using metric tonnes). Just as we're going by the largest sauropods we have identifiable traces or fragments of.
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The proportions for both changed a lot however. And sauropods just love their variable proportions.
I had read the entire paper, my memory was just a bit off. Still larger then anything from the time.
Why? If we're talking which one of the two groups could be heavier, why make it biased against the whales? (higher then reasonable) Max estimates for sauropod tracks but only the weight of the largest weighed individuals for whales?
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Is that really biased against the whales? That is, itself, highly debatable. Consider the fact that all the largest sauropod species are only known from 1 or two adult specimens, while you are talking about the largest whales in thousands, or tens of thousands. I get that it would be biased to use a liberal max-size estimates and compare ot to the average.
But the conservative estimates for several of the animals involved already compare nicely to the average size of the largest whales, as to the liberal estimates with their maximum sizes.
imo we can’t say which wins at the moment, people are just keen on seeing the whales win for some reason, which is easily enough achieved if the largest sauropod species are not included in the equation.
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Except it' not the largest. It's the largest weighed. Which again brings us into probability, and human error (given weighing methods), and the fact that extinction makes them smaller on average.
No, whales almost certainly weigh over 200 tons max, and no sauropod discoveries have even been suggested to weigh over 200. And no fossils indicate stuff of 150. So yes, it is definitive.
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According to math, a 60-metre Amphicoelias would be over 150 tonnes.
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