Pack-Hunting Dinosaurs Found As Large As T-Rex

1369IC writes "The Washington Post is reporting that the recently unearthed Mapusaurus roseae was as large as a T-Rex and may have hunted in packs. The fossils were found in Patagonia, in Argentina, though not enough were found to reconstruct an entire specimen. The meat-eaters probably lived in the same time and place as the 125-foot-long Argentinosaurus, the largest known dinosaur." From the article: "T. rex was equipped to attack and destroy animals its own size, Currie said, but Mapusaurs perhaps could 'go in, strike, pull and see what to do next,' a strategy that could work against larger animals, especially if the predators attacked together -- the prehistoric equivalent of a pack of wolves cornering a bison."

Comments

Re:Capitalism at its finest

[iggymanz]

um,do you realize what most of those "scientific" names are if you translate the latin? Sacred Lizard, King Tyrant Lizard, Bird Robber, Thunder Lizard, Different Lizard......really heavy intellectual meaning and description there! Using part of a person's name is no worse.

parent: loada crap

[flyingsquid]

(1) eyes are relatively smaller in larger animals. Adult humans have smaller eyes than infants, for example. T. rex and other large, carnivorous dinosaurs have relatively small eyes, but that's exactly as you'd expect. (2) plenty of animals manage to take down prey just fine without the use of arms. Sharks and crocodiles, for instance. (3) Concerning healed wounds, plenty of broken and healed bones are found. The problem: how do you tell it was T. rex that did it? Some healed breaks have been identified as the work of T. rex, but other people are skeptical. After all, it's not as if the bones come with a "This bone was broken by T. rex" stamp. Short of having a tooth actually get lodged in the bone and then seeing some healing taking place (not impossible, but very improbable) we can't know for sure how these bones got broken. (4)This is not the only instance of large groups of carnivorous dinosaurs being found together. There's a site currently being worked in Alberta with over a dozen tyrannosaurs. (5) Elephant graveyards are a myth

Re:TFA: loada crap

[Miraba]

"Given that, I'm loathe to accept some conjecture about some other animal that supposedly lived and hunted in packs based on the spurious evidence of a group of bones comprising many species members and none of which comprise more than 80% of a single animal."

Actually, 80% recovery of an organism is nothing to sneeze at. (And where did you pull that number from? I haven't seen it anywhere and I just scanned through the paper.) Consider how many species are known only through teeth, skull fragments, and the end of a femur or other long bones.

Fragments and intact bones of Mapusaurus roseae include:

Skull
Mandible
Teeth
Vertebrae
Ribs
Pectoral and pelvic girdles
Limbs (fore and hind)
Phlanges

So what, exactly, do you want them to find before they start theorizing how M. roseae lived?