The battle still rages on for the title of the largest dinosaur to walk the Earth.
As more time passes, we uncover more evidence of these prehistoric giants.
And we're not talking about just the plant eaters, but the meat-eating dinosaurs too.
Just how big were the mightiest sauropods, and could these giants really have fallen
prey to the ferocious meat-eaters during their time?
Could the mighty Giganotosaurus, or the huge and scary Spinosaurus, defeat a Tyrannosaurus-rex
in battle?
And could the T-Rex have been 70% larger than previously thought?
If you love dinosaurs, then get ready to find out the answers to this and more.
Many of you probably learned that dinosaurs such as Brontosaurus and Diplodocus were the
biggest, and they were the standard image of monstrous plant eaters to museumgoers for
more than a century.
But as time went on, we quickly learned that even these enormous animals weren’t the
largest of all.
Lots of new dinosaur bones were uncovered during the “great-dinosaur renaissance”
which lasted from the 1970s through the 1990s.
And these fossils had big names like Ultrasaurus, Seismosaurus, and Supersaurus.
The problem was that the announcements from the field about these huge monsters didn’t
hold up in the lab when the fossils were studied.
Sadly, a lot of dinosaur bones that were discovered back then were either lost, destroyed during
WW2, or the fossils simply disintegrated, and no other examples have since been discovered.
The largest complete fossil skeleton for a plant-eating dinosaur that has been found
belongs to Brachiosaurus, which ranged in size from 17 to 22 meters [55 to 72 feet]
long and would have stood some 13 meters [42 feet] tall.
The huge dinosaur probably weighed as much as 70 tons.
It had longer front limbs compared to its hind limbs, which likely helped the Brachiosaurus
reach higher vegetation without straining its long neck.
Some paleontologists say that this dinosaur might have occasionally stood up on its hind
legs to reach food.
The huge Brachiosaurus was so big that it likely had few predators, and it’s estimated
they lived for about 100 years.
One of the largest herbivores we have evidence of, roamed around the Earth about 100 million
years ago during the Early Cretaceous with other giant sauropods.
This huge beast is called Patagotitan mayorum, or better known as Titanosaur.
Many fossils of this dinosaur have been found, including a thighbone that measured 2.4 meters
[8 feet] long.
With some of the pieces of the puzzle, it had its skeleton completely cast, and was
unveiled at the American Museum of Natural History.
The skeleton of the Titanosaur is so big that its head and neck stick out in the hallway
of the museum.
The Titanosaur was estimated to weigh around 69 metric tons [76 tons].
That’s more than ten full grown African elephants.
These creatures were so big when they were full grown, that it could have been very difficult
for predators to take them down.
That’s huge, but there was another plant-eating dinosaur even bigger than Titanosaur!
We’re talking about Argentinosaurus.
It’s been known to science since 1993, but evidence of this behemoth was originally found
back in 1987.
A rancher found a huge fossil the size of a full grown human.
But the rancher didn’t know it was an ancient fossil, and thought it was a large chunk of
petrified wood, but it turned out to be a large single vertebra that belonged to a newly
discovered sauropod.
Like many dinosaur bone discoveries, no complete skeletons have been found of Argentinosaurus.
But what archaeologists have found gives us a clear picture of how big this beast really
was; growing to a length of 37-40 meters [121-131 feet] and it probably weighed somewhere between
90 and 100 metric tons [99 to 110 tons]!
But there were not only herbivorous dinosaurs that walked on all fours, there were some
really big bipedal plant-eating dinosaurs that were much bigger than even Tyrannosaurus
Rex…and even Spinosaurus, both of which we’ll get to in a few moments.
For many decades, the only fossils that paleontologists had of a beast called Deinocheirus, an omnivorous
giant theropod, was a pair of eight foot long arms that had 8 inch claws…which were the
largest and longest arms of any bipedal dinosaur.
Discovered back in the Gobi Desert in 19654, scientists named it Deinocheirus mirificus;
Greek for ‘terrible hands’.
Fossils tell us this dinosaur reached lengths of 10 meters [33 feet] long, and stood at
least 4.5 meters [15 feet] tall.
And with most adults weighing in at over 9 tons, it was no slouch in the size department
either.
You’re probably wondering what it used the long arms and claws for.
Paleontologists say that Deinocheirus likely used its long arms and claws to dig up plants
or even catch fish.
However, Deinocheirus probably snatched up any other small creature that was unlucky
enough to cross paths with it.
Other features of this big unique dinosaur included a large, thick humped backbone.
This dinosaur sounds big and scary, but there was a bipedal herbivore even bigger!
Around the same time, about 100 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous period, there
was a huge hadrosaurid dinosaur that roamed in what is now the Shandong Peninsula.
Its scientific name is Shantungosaurus giganteus, or Shandong Lizard, due to it being one of
the largest ornithischian dinosaurs found to date.
A full grown Shantungosaurus could reach lengths up to 16.5 meters [54 feet] and some of the
largest of these dinosaurs could have weighed around 16 tonnes [18 short tons] The skull
alone from one of these beasts measured 1.63 meters [5.3] feet long And like all hadrosaurs,
it had a giant toothless beak, but its jaws were packed with around 1,500 tiny chewing
teeth.
It was a strange dinosaur in that fossil remains show a large hole near its nostrils that paleontologists
say could have been covered by a flap of skin that could be inflated to make sounds.
If this dinosaur was full grown, it might have been too intimidating for predators to
attack it.
But all of these dinosaurs had one thing in common, they were all on the menu of some
predatory meat-eating dinosaur.
The last two dinosaurs we talked about were likely hunted by Tarbosaurus.
This dinosaur was also discovered in the Gobi Desert and could reach 10 to 12 meters [40
feet] in length, and as an adult, weighed in at 4.5 metric tons [5.0 short tons].
Like all other meat eating predators of the time, this dinosaur hunted and ate anything
it could bring down.
It had thick and long legs that allowed it to move with speed and agility.
The interesting thing about this terrifying predator is that it had a unique locking mechanism
in its 1.2 meter [4.2 feet] long jaw, which had between 58 and 64 large, sharp, knife-shaped
teeth about 8.3 centimeters [3.3 inches] long.
This meant that when it attacked its unlucky prey, its jaw would lock down on the victim,
leaving it with no way to escape.
This dinosaur was the king of dinosaurs in ancient Asia.
But in North America, a much more menacing ‘king of the dinosaurs’ was found.
The Tyrannosaurus-Rex is probably everyone’s favorite dinosaur, even though it would have
been a terrifying monster for any human to encounter.
The T-Rex was definitely one of the biggest carnivorous dinosaurs measuring up to 12.3
meters long [40 feet], and could weigh up to 8.8 metric tons [9.78 short tons].
And for their size, they were quick.
Some scientists say the ‘Tyrant Lizard King’ could sprint between 20 and 32 kilometers
per hour [12.2 to 20 mph].
And if something wasn’t fast enough to escape Tyrannosaurus Rex, it would have to contend
with a 1.2 meter [4 feet] long jaw full of 50-60 banana-sized teeth that could exert
up to 12,814 pounds of force [57,000 Newton].
Recently, scientists have done a study that concludes this dinosaur could be 70% bigger
than fossils suggest.
That means the largest T-Rex could have weighed a whopping 15 metric tons [16.5 US tons],
that’s heavier than the average bus.
T-Rex was almost certainly an apex predator and could probably bring down anything with
that incredibly powerful bite and those 30 centimeter [12 inches] long teeth.
While the T-Rex definitely sounds big and impressive, he wasn’t the biggest meat eater.
And even though the skeletons of the next big carnivorous dinosaur are incomplete, we
have somewhat an idea of how big it was.
Giganotosaurus was thought to stand 6-meters [20 feet] high, and was around 13.7 meters
[45 feet] long.
However, paleontologists have argued that the skull of Giganotosaurus was the same size
as Tyrannosaurus rex, and probably had less bite force.
But their jaws could open and close faster, and they brought down their prey by delivering
quick powerful bites, whereas T-Rex’s bite was so powerful that it could crush the bones
of its prey.
But Giganotosaurus was thought to have one big advantage over T-Rex as it could run as
fast as 50 kilometers per hour [31 mph] thanks to its larger and more powerful leg muscles.
Even though this dinosaur might be bigger than T-Rex, if these two got into a battle,
it might be better for Giganotosaurus to run.
But there is another dinosaur that is just as terrifyingly scary, if not more so.
The legendary Spinosaurus was first discovered back in 1912 by German paleontologist Ernst
Stromer in Egypt.
Unfortunately, the original fossils were destroyed during WW2.
But drawings with notes of the fossils were detailed enough for paleontologists to come
up with enough ideas of what it looked like.
Spinosaurus had jaws like a crocodile, with conical teeth and large hooked claws for catching
slippery prey like the 25-foot long sawfish, or giant lungfish.
This makes sense because Egypt, during the Late Cretaceous period, was a tropical oasis
of mangrove-lined rivers full of sharks and other giant fish.
Since then, Paleontologists in the Moroccan Sahara have found a mostly complete tail of
Spinosaurus.
With its huge sail on its back, the dinosaur stood at 6.5 meters [20 feet] tall, and its
skull was 1.75 meters [6 feet] long.
Spinosaurus could grow between 14-18 meters [46-59 feet] long, and weighed an astonishing
12,000-20,000 kilograms [13-22 tons].
And just because this dinosaur was more adapted to the water, it was a hybrid, and could also
hunt on land if it had to.
Were it to run into Giganotosaurus, it could probably win the battle.
But Tyrannosaurus rex, on the other hand, with its massive bite force and 30 centimeter
[12 inch] long teeth, just might give the Spinosaurus a run for its money.
Now that you’ve seen and heard about these incredible dinosaurs, we want to hear from
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