May I recommend this episode of the very excellent Common Descent podcast in which they discuss sauropods with great abandon?
https://commondescentpodcast.wordpress.com/2020/11/28/episod...
Dinosaur unearthed in Argentina could be largest land animal ever
41–50 of 73 posts
Re: Dinosaur unearthed in Argentina could be largest land animal ever
#42It could step over an elephant: https://paleontology.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/David-Att... from: https://paleontology.us/titanosaurus/
Interestingly in the 2nd link that they have this creature towering over the local flora. The long neck makes more sense if there are trees that size and the neck is to get to the leaves. Otherwise what use is it?
giraffes have super long necks and yet they bend over to eat. The answer is runaway sexual selection (or at least that's the answer wrt to giraffes).
Re: Dinosaur unearthed in Argentina could be largest land animal ever
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interestingly in the 2nd link that they have this creature towering over the local flora. The long neck makes more sense if there are trees that size and the neck is to get to the leaves. Otherwise what use is it?
giraffes have super long necks and yet they bend over to eat. The answer is runaway sexual selection (or at least that's the answer wrt to giraffes).
Giraffes also reach up to eat.
(They do look quite funny when bending down to drink, though!)
Re: Dinosaur unearthed in Argentina could be largest land animal ever
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
giraffes have super long necks and yet they bend over to eat. The answer is runaway sexual selection (or at least that's the answer wrt to giraffes).
Giraffes also reach up to eat. (They do look quite funny when bending down to drink, though!)
I used to live in Tanzania and over there, the trees are mostly shorter than the giraffes, but I'm sure they reach up to eat sometimes. I guess my point was that giraffes didn't evolve long necks to eat.
Re: Dinosaur unearthed in Argentina could be largest land animal ever
#45My first thought is to wonder how hard it would be to train
It was probably really dumb.
Re: Dinosaur unearthed in Argentina could be largest land animal ever
#46There is a truly excellent children’s book about the discovery of the Patagotitan, also in Argentina. It was my son’s favorite story for months. Highly Recommended!
https://kids.scholastic.com/kids/book/titanosaur-by-jose-lui...
Re: Dinosaur unearthed in Argentina could be largest land animal ever
#47It's bigger than a 737
Re: Dinosaur unearthed in Argentina could be largest land animal ever
#48Wow. Something tells me if this is the new record for land animals we'll eventually find something that lived in the ocean that's bigger than a blue whale.
How about a giant organism with an ocean inside of it?
Re: Dinosaur unearthed in Argentina could be largest land animal ever
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interestingly in the 2nd link that they have this creature towering over the local flora. The long neck makes more sense if there are trees that size and the neck is to get to the leaves. Otherwise what use is it?
giraffes have super long necks and yet they bend over to eat. The answer is runaway sexual selection (or at least that's the answer wrt to giraffes).
This centuries-old question is still not settled, right?
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160629-giraffes-did-not-evo...
Re: Dinosaur unearthed in Argentina could be largest land animal ever
#50It’s only just occurred to me that dinosaur bones like this are in soil not rock? Even if it’s not technically soil, the bones are at least buried in something fairly soft.
That’s crazy. I’ve only ever thought of fossils as being encased inside hard rock.
The bias of the fossil record makes a discovery like this so unlikely that it’s objectively joyous when it happens.