HOME | DD
povorot — African Paratyrannosaur
Published: 2009-03-08 20:21:18 +0000 UTC; Views: 5627; Favourites: 110; Downloads: 0
Redirect to original
Description
The largest extant land predator on Earth. More later.Related content
Comments: 34
See the comment below yours for the explanation (from Moai)
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I know, but it still should be at least 9 meters long
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Very cool! It's interesting how, even though it is still quite formidable in size, it's quite a bit smaller than the largest theropods of the Mesozoic. Cenozoic megafauna is generally smaller than Mesozoic megafauna in this world too, it seems.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Did this guy descend from dromaeosaurs or another group of surviving non-dromaeosaur theropods?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I figured he's a highly specialized dromaeosaur descendant, along with the other '
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
These things would be perfect for some cool Hyena-esque reverse sexual dimorphism.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Exactly! I was even thinking about the problems of sexual dimorphism in dinos today. I think that much like birds of prey (and, it's been said, t-rex) it would be cool to have the females the larger sex, and with more prominent horns. They'd probably have to protect their young from roaming males as well - paratyrannosaurs would definitely be cannibals, especially in the context of an adult male coming across chicks that weren't his.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Are paratyrannosaurs gonna have a similar life history as true tyrannosaurs?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I think so. It fits the best.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Well in that case, interestingly enough they probably wouldn't have much parental care. That kind of rapid life history pattern usually exhibits high infant mortality rates, low juvenile ones, and high rates of death for sexually mature adults. Adults and sub adults would be eating hatchlings like gangbusters, reverse sexual dimorphism would probably be better spent in the procurement of mates than the immediate protection of a brood. Perhaps large females set up enormous "nursery territories" filled with their young offspring who use just the presence of their more or less indifferent mother to afford themselves slightly greater odds of not getting eaten by the speedier, smaller, and more nomadic males?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Hmm. See, I'm assuming slightly higher intelligence then in T-Rex, I guess - I'm giving the maniraptoran survivors all (at least) low bird-level intelligence, so the Paratyrannosaurs will probably have a bear-like sex life - after the chicks hatch, they'd stick close to mom and live in deadly fear of most other adults and subadults.
But the example you've given sounds really good for the giant flightless enantiornithines I'm planning for Aus and Oceania. Especially this line: "Adults and sub adults would be eating hatchlings like gangbusters." That just fills my mind with images of weird, feathery monsters kicking the shit out of each other in the Bornean jungles...
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Oh yeah, duh, I didn't realize that they'd be packing maniraptoran brains too. Goddamn these things would kill the hell outta us. After doing some impromptu bear research (the best kind of research there is) it seems like a tyrannosaur could easily adapt to that kind of life history. It's similar, just a tad less extreme.
Also I literally cannot wait to see these enantiornithines; giant predatory cassowaries with komodo dragon life histories? Mark me down for "Oh yes, please."
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Actually, I thought some little dromeos did have horns, or platelets. Anyhow, it doesn't really matter that much what an ancestor had since that sort of thing can arise very rapidly. I like the hint of velociraptor in the topline of the snout, and the gangly legs.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thanks, man. I figured similarly - what's stopping it from evolving horns? The might develop for any reason - defending territories, fighting rivals, sexual dimorphism...
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Very cool. Certainly wouldn't want to run into this big guy out on the African plains. Fantastic creature. i think the horns work nicely. As you said feathers can cause heat problems in such a warm climate so horns are a good alternative. There's certainly been far stranger in both the fossil record and in animals alive today.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Exactly. I liked the horns as an aesthetic choice.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Beautiful, it's an amazing animal...Sheesh I'm so jealous
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
You're totally welcome, do you plan on having any surviving herbivorous clades (ceratopsids, hadrosaurs, generic ornithopods)?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I don't think so - I've got ideas on a few survivors, but I think it'll be limited to mammals, birds, and a handful of therapods - deinonychosaurs, a few oviraptorids, and maybe some alvarezsaurids.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I personally think wouldn't have re-evolved the horns of a ceratosaur like creature.
I always thought they would get a lion-like mane of feathers on their neck.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Fair enough. The problem with a mane is that it traps too much body heat on an animal this big - it'd have a very thin coat of feathers, probably losing them as it grew. With the horns, there's a great painting by Peter Schouten [link] depicting an Albertosaur with horns - stranger crests have evolved on animals before, so I don't think it'd be too wild to depict a derived dromaeosaur species with horns.
👍: 0 ⏩: 2
I see. Then that looks prety good to me.
So these guys like tigers or lions hunting-wise?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Well, big fellas like this would need a big territory, and I think they'd be solitary, tiger-like hunters - ambush predators when in forests, more cursorial on the plains. They'd most likely spend a lot of their time and effort bullying smaller animals off of their kills, because catching a prey animal off-guard at that size might be a little difficult...
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I should have guessed given its tyrannosaur life style set in the modern day. Nice design though I think a massive carnivore up in the northpole would be a possible creature and given the logic I bet happened but went extinct in this time line either do to the Ice Age ending or like our society kills large animals like the woolly rhinos I bet the Dinosapiens could have made the large carnivore extinct to. *thinks* Ever thought about those tool users haveing a ninja star like throwing weapon, If I recall their arm position they could throw certain things better than others.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
One thing on that, though - the great beasts only survived in Africa, where we never left. If sophonts evolved alongside the great beasts of their time, instead of elsewhere, perhaps they wouldn't have eliminated them as early as we did. Rather, the giant ice-age creatures of this time stream, as their sophonts evolved in their shadow, may not have been so quickly wiped out.
I like the ninja-star idea, though.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
You bring up an intresting point I should have thought of in my little dino world.
Yay! I am useful. XD
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
You probably shouldn't pay much attention to Peter's drawings though; in his critic of that guy's book, Darren Naish claims many of Peter's depictions of feathered dinosaurs are wrong
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
But the paintings are SO BEAUTIFUL!
(I forgot about that - I'm a pretty avid tet zoo reader)
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Okay, I'll forgive you. I just don't think dromeosaurs would produce horns
👍: 0 ⏩: 0