Slashdot Mirror
Giant Dinosaur Unearthed In Argentina
sciencehabit writes Researchers working in Argentina have discovered the most complete skeleton of a titanosaur, a group of gigantic plant-eating dinosaurs that dominated the Southern Hemisphere beginning about 90 million years ago. The new dino, named Dreadnoughtus schrani, was 26 meters long and weighed about 59 metric tons—that is, twice as long as Tyrannosaurus rex and as heavy as a herd of elephants. That puts it on a par with other well-known giants such as Argentinosaurus (but it's four times as large as the perhaps better known Diplodocus). The researchers say that the beast was so big it would have had no fear of predators. And it was about to get bigger: A close examination of the fossils, especially its back and shoulder bones, indicates that the animal was still growing when it died.
But if it is so big, instead of tiny insectoid parasites, a pack of rats might just burrow into its hide and make a nest, instead of fleas it might have ferrets like creatures crawling over it and biting it to drink its blood. And I do not even want to think about what it might have instead of the standard tapeworms. It would be interesting to research what type of ecosystems build up around such giant creatures.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
A creature weighing 59 short tons of course would be wimpy and easily bullied and not at all impressive.
Unless the original headline is accurate, in which case get Michael Bay on the phone.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
It's not uncommon in many reptiles to just never stop growing. I wonder if some of these dinosaurs are
just exceptionally large specimens of already know dinosaurs instead of entirely new species.
Nice video with the researcher here
"A better example of pack hunters taking down a larger animal would be wolves taking down a moose or ox."
Sure but the point he was making I think is that those aren't good examples of animals being quite big enough to survive pack hunters. I think the point is that there are at least some animals that have grown so big that nothing really bothers them much, even in packs- sometimes their smaller young get hunted but that's about it.
Blue whales are a fine example like elephants, sure orcas have been known to go after the young, but adults? Not a chance - there's just too much animal there for even a pack of them to deal with.
I think the summary was pointing out simply that the colossal size of this animal meant it was in that category- the set of animals that have managed to grow big enough in their environment that when fully grown even packs aren't going to dick around with.
I suspect a pack probably could take down these animals, just as a pack of hyenas probably could take down an elephant and a pack of orcas probably could take down a blue whale, but when the risk is so high no such packs are ever going to bother in practice. Why shouldn't this animal fall into the same category? It doesn't seem unreasonable to think that it's sheer size meant it was never hunted when fully grown or near fully grown whether by packs or solo hunters, it was just too fucking big to bother with.