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Paleo-King In reply to Patchi1995 [2015-01-15 08:34:46 +0000 UTC]

Nope. It's not the record-breaker once thought. The biggest dinosaurs so far are Argentinosaurus, Puertasaurus, Alamosaurus, and whatever the "Chubut Monster" turns out to be (it's a lognkosaur by all appearances but doesn't have a name yet).

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palaeozoologist In reply to theropod1 [2014-10-19 17:54:14 +0000 UTC]

Thanks! The neck reconstruction was largely to assist in doing the mass estimate using graphic double integration (GDI). It's easier when in a horizontal plane, plus, most of the neck is missing, so it is difficult to illustrate a neck from multiple views wen the neck is arched. I have been thinking of adding a more "life-like" posture in addition to these to emphasize the fact that I do not consider this an in vivo posture.

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theropod1 In reply to palaeozoologist [2014-10-19 21:15:48 +0000 UTC]

Thanks for the elaboration!
btw I guess "normal" was a very ill-chosen word on my part, I should have written something along the lines of "typical for an archosaurian neck".

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palaeozoologist In reply to Raygathex [2014-10-19 17:50:11 +0000 UTC]

Are you talking about the angle of the neck or the overall proportions? The proportions are based largely on Futalognkosaurus, and yes, the height of the cervical vertebrae dramatically shortens like that in the anterior part of the neck. It looks weird, but nature isn't there to please us aesthetically

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SpinoInWonderland In reply to palaeozoologist [2014-10-20 00:42:52 +0000 UTC]

Or the anterior cervical could be positioned further anteriorly and the neck would not look weird? It's possible, there's only two elements found from the neck after all, along with the notion that Futalognkosaurus does not really show such a neck profile.

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palaeozoologist In reply to SpinoInWonderland [2014-10-26 16:19:15 +0000 UTC]

Actually, Futalognkosaurus does show such a neck profile...other neck reconstructions that have appeared for it are wrong (including mine...which I have to re-do)

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yty2000 In reply to palaeozoologist [2014-11-29 04:35:47 +0000 UTC]

Could it be because the anterior cervical is figured to be the 5th in your image, but 4th in the paper?

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palaeozoologist In reply to yty2000 [2014-11-30 19:26:36 +0000 UTC]

Sure, that could be some of the difference. It is actually the 6th in my reconstruction (the atlas is small and is hard to see). I have also placed the mid-posterior in the 10th position, not the 9th (as in the paper). This is based off of additional photos that I have seen of Futalognkosaurus cervical vertebra, and they really do appear to have that odd profile. Obviously, in life, depending on how the soft-tissue enveloped the neck, the difference might not be so noticeable. The Dreadnoughtus cervicals are scaled the same as in the digital mount provided in the supplementary material of the paper, I then scaled the photos of Futalognkosaurus to match the Dreadnoughtus material, and what you see is the result. The neck position is also not intended to be taken as the ONP or HNP. This was purely for purposes to make my GDI estimate easier. My intention is to explain all of this in more detail (with references, etc) in a blog post, but I have been working a ton of hours and have not had the time to do so. Hopefully in the coming month I'll have time to do so...we'll see

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yty2000 In reply to palaeozoologist [2014-12-02 19:41:50 +0000 UTC]

OK that makes sense. I will wait for your detailed explanation in future posts.
Do you have any info on the referred limb material for Futalognkosaurus?
Where did you get the better photos on Futalognkosaurus cervicals?

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SpinoInWonderland In reply to Raygathex [2014-10-06 16:23:35 +0000 UTC]

Aside from the forced horizontal posture, the flesh outline in his skeletals basically hugs the skeleton(not as much as GSP though).

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palaeozoologist In reply to SpinoInWonderland [2014-10-19 17:50:44 +0000 UTC]

I'll have more to say on the soft-tissue reconstruction in a future blog post.

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palaeozoologist In reply to SelenaRH [2014-10-19 17:48:17 +0000 UTC]

All will be explained in a future blog post...

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