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Please don't revert any more character articles. Plenty of people agree with the mergers and all of the opposers have not come up with an argument that isn't covered here. Nemu17:27, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No, you did the same mergig, and after all, anyone has the right of edit Wiki.
No, I went to a talk page to gather opinions on it. Enough people thought it was fine, so I went ahead and did it. You are doing the opposite. You have decided the articles should exist on your own with no true resoning besides the nots in the link above. Nemu17:32, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That's not how you change the name of an article; rather, you move the article using the "Move" button up top. Because you copy-and-pasted that, that is now impossible except for admins. -Jeske(v^_^v)21:21, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Never invite me to that cesspool of retardation again! XD I don't know what's worse, that retard Bendilin, those prudish moderators, or that godawful forum code. I've tried to say my piece, but it keeps getting deleted.
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No problem! I have a pretty simple template set up to create these, so making new ones is relatively easy once I can find accurate measurements to scale by. Good luck with the presentation! Dinoguy2 (talk) 17:20, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hey Eriorguez! Sounds like an interesting lineup, I'll see what I can do. In the mean time, you might just want to point them to this paper: [1] Turner et al dismiss the idea that larger dromaeosaurs would have lost their feathers flat-out. Dinoguy2 (talk) 01:00, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Coincidentally I was working on a size chart for the Nile Crocodile when you requested this, so it was pretty easy to whip one up--let me know what you think. Dinoguy2 (talk) 06:05, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Eriorguez, sorry I don't have much time at the moment so I may have to answer your questions in bits and pieces. First off, the "Biggest, Ugliest" scale diagram you linked to seems wrong in several respects, mainly in the size and proportions of T. rex. In that drawing, it looks like each square on the grid is about 0.5m. From this, it looks like the skull of T. rex is nearly 2m long, and the femur is maybe a little over 2m long. In the largest known T. rex specimen (Sue), according to The Theropod Database (a very handy site for this kind of thing!), Sue's skull is 1.4m long and the femur is 1.3 m. Without doing detailed measurements of every body part, it looks like the artist made his T. rex too large by a pretty big factor. He also seems to be cheating a bit by having the T. rex in a bird-like posture with the back at an angle to the ground, but not the other large theropods, in order to make T. rex appear larger still. Similarly, he made Spinosaurus the only one not in a running pose--running effectively puts the animal on tip toes, so he's done his best to make Spinosaurus appear as short as possible and T. rex appear as tall as possible. With all that said, measuring height in theropods is very tricky business because we have no idea what posture they walked in, to what degree the knees were bent, etc. For all we know some large theropods could have normally walked in a full crouch with the belly low to the ground and the knees fully bent as in birds (I don't know of any studies that have looked into this). Anyway, like I said I've got to run but I'll come back to your other questions soon! Dinoguy2 (talk) 00:13, 15 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hi again, as to your other questions:
Deinonychus lives in a tropical or sub-tropical environment of swampy forests and floodplains, similar to the area around modern New Orleans. It would have been fairly hot and humid. Utahraptor lived in the same region a few million years earlier, when it was more arid, presumably similar to the Morrison formation or the kind of places Achillobator lived. So, I'd say Utahraptor and Achillobrator probably would have had similar plumage covering, whatever that was. Deinonychus was less of a desert animal, so whatever feathers the big guys had, Deinonychus was much much smaller and certainly would have had an even more extensive feather covering. At the very least, I'd expect its plumage to be as extensive as a Marabou Stork. As for Utahraptor, official estimates place it at 500kg, 100kg more than Aepyornis, but I'm not sure if this takes pneumatic bones into account. Either way, an average Utahraptor and average elephant bird would be about the same weight. The larger body of Aepyornis in the chart is due to much heavier feathering--If I re-did the Utahraptor more like my Achillobator it might appear larger... maybe I'll try this when I get a second to add Velociraptor as you requested.
I definitely agree with you on the orders--while cladistics is more exact, I do think that if we're talking Linnaean ranks at all, at least have them make sense. Placing Archaeopteryx in not only a separate family, or separate order, but entirely separate class as Microraptor or Anchiornis, which are almost identical, is just insanity. Greg Paul had the right idea in 1988 :)
I'd have to disagree though that Archaeopteryx is the most suited to ground living of the basal paravians. It has larger wings than Anchiornis with broader, asymmetrical feathers. The wings of Anchiornis are small, rounded, and have narrow symmetrical feathers. Despite the hind wings I think it's doubtful Anchiornis could get airborne at all, rather it was either basal to the arboreal gliding stage or was on its way to losing the ability to glide, as seen in later, shorter-armed, definitely ground-living troodontids. It's possible that with more finds Archaeopteryx may turn out to be a basal dromaeosaurid, or at least deinonychosaur (though the name Archaeopterygidae will have priority over Dromaeosauridae if that happens, so there will be no such thing as dromaeosaurids any more than there is a Brontosaurus!). But we need some good skeletons of Jurassic dromaeosaurs to test this, which right not don't exist. For now, it definitely looks slightly more bird-like in a few key features than do primitive dromies, so it will have to stay a basal avialan for the foreseeable future. And it will always be a primitive bird, because as of now the definition of bird includes Archeopteryx by default. The only thing that would hcange if Archie is a dromie, is that dromaeosaurs would officially be birds as well. Dinoguy2 (talk) 02:05, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I think your size comparisons are pretty spot on regarding the different dromaeosaurs. As for the tyrannosaur impressions, the scale-like ones haven't even been published on yet, and the supposed filaments are just a DML rumor at this point. I guess it will be a long time before we have anything concrete on tyrannosaur skin covering. MMartyniuk (talk) 23:14, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hi again! As you noticed, the dromaeosaurine section of Theropod Database is incomplete. Most of those isolated teeth and jaw bones you see are from unidentified or yet to be named species. However, as far as I know the only nearly complete skull from this clade is Dromaeosaurus itself. No skull is known for Utahraptor. The braincase would be visible through the orbit in that skull pic, not the antorbital fenestra, between and behind the eyes. The skull of Deinonychus is tricky because no complete skull has been found, and even reasonably complete ones are horribly crushed. The newer, narrow-skulled version is based on detailed studies by Greg Paul. However, these studies have never been published except without comment in a skeletal drawing in his book Dinosaurs of the Air, and thus aren't very well known. So most museum mounts will be closer to the old style (though the ones in the article are still far less allosaur like than the really old ones from the '70s, and aren't more than 10 years out of date). If Paul ever chooses to publish a paper on the skull of Deinonychus we'd have more to go on and more museums would be able to fix such errors, funds permitting. Assuming the are errors, really only one person is studying this and he hasn't published his methods or even really results, so it's impossible to check his work. MMartyniuk (talk) 02:13, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hi again! Actually, I can find a few references to Utahraptor having unusually large wing claws compared to other dromaeosaurids (like this discussion) but no actual cites. I wonder if this was misinterpreted, like hand claws from a larger individual being associated with foot claws of a smaller one? Will require more research. Either way this wouldn't have any bearing on the question of wings or extent of feather,s as studies have proven (to the point you can prove something common sense) that the feathers of bird wings are oriented perpendicular to the angle of the claws so would never get in the way of a predatory strike with the hands.
Good catch with the leg lengths of T. rex and Giga. quick search of Theropod Database shows the same thing, holotype femur+tibia length in Giga is about 2.5m (keep in mind the holotype is only a 12.2 meter individual, the referred specimen would likely have even longer legs) while the femur+tibia length of Sue is also 2.5. Same leg length in both, though I can't find data on metatarsal length at the moment (not on my main computer) which would also have an impact. The MtIII of Sue is 0.7m, can't find this info for Gig.
The nature of the body plumage in maniraptors is a bit controversial. Most papers find the body feathers of non-avialan coelurosaurs to be filamentous (hair-like) or plumaceous (down-like) only, not pennaceous (solid planes, as in modern birds). However the preservation of these on most specimens is not good enough to tell for sure. Sinosauropteryx for example is usually said to have only filamentous feathers, but some studies claim to see branching (either from a common base, or along a slightly thicker central 'quill', which would be surprisingly advanced!). Deinonychosaurian body feathers are usually said to be halfway between filamentous and plumaceous, with a central quill that branches out into many filaments at the tip (like a little plume) but not along the length of the quill. However, a few papers cite them as being true plumaceous, though without in-depth analysis. Some appear to have a mix--Archaeopteryx has simple-plumaceous or even filamentous feathers on the head and neck, but at least one study cites evidence that the rest of the body feathers are truly pennaceous as in modern birds. The problem is preservation has a lot to do with it. Some specimens of Sinornithosaurus like "Dave" seem to have little wings made of plumaceous feathers, while some unpublished ones seem to have truly pennaceous feathers and full wings. In otherwords, degrees of preservation can make feathers look like they're simpler than they really were. And the fact papers often gloss over this/don't bother to explain themselves doesn't help. One Anchiornis paper says the body feathers are plumaceous, the next says all the body feathers are pennaceous and nearly identical to the wing feathers in shape. Neither gives in depth analysis or further discussion! Very frustrating for paleoartists ;) MMartyniuk (talk) 06:51, 1 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I laid out my opinions on Torosaurus/Triceratopshere. That's about all I've got at the moment, especially since the papers haven't been published yet so nobody has seen the full listing of evidence for their case. I do think the basic theory makes sense, and tend to agree for the pachys. I think the thing amateurs (including me) tend to get hung up on in these situations is the falsely perceived completeness of specimens and confidence in referrals. People are under the impression that we have many good specimens and complete skulls of Triceratops and Torosaurus. But how can we know it's a Torosaurus if only bones from the body are found, or if a skull lacks a frill? As I pointed out in my blog, many "Triceratops" specimens are actually Torosaurus, and vice versa, so if these ARE separate species, we're pretty much boned when it comes to classifying them at all and 90% of the specimens out there will have to be treated as dubious. It makes much more sense to me, especially given the evidence for 'intermediate' stages, that there's only one ceratopsian in this environment, and "Torosaurus" is simply the 'silverback' of Triceratops (er... Agathaumas, really!). Because of this, I'd take the "fact" that the largest Triceratops are 10m and largest Toros are 7.5m with a huge lump of salt. Did those 10m Trike specimens have utterly complete skulls with frills? If not, how do we know it's not Torosaurus? Remember that, in the absence of a frill, any Hell Creek or equivalent ceratopsian gets referred to Triceratops by default with no other logical reasoning. Denver fowler has assured us on DinoForum that when these papers come out, they'll explain which specimens we think are which species, and whether or not we can actually tell, and why. Surprisingly this has never been done before so anything labelled as "Triceratops" or "Torosaurus" except the very few exquisitely preserved, non-museum-enhanced skulls, are up in the air as to their identity. MMartyniuk (talk) 23:42, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Right, Eotriceratops is likely a close cousin, if not direct ancestor, of Triceratops/Torosaurus. Mainly because it's a few million years earlier. If it were present at the same time, I'd say the main distinguishing characteristics" (forward-curving horns, long but solid frill, lack of epoccipitals, large skull size) look like exactly what would be expected from a growth stage intermediate between "Triceratops stage" and "Torosaurus stage". MMartyniuk (talk) 23:16, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Eriorguez, honestly I'm not too up on the relevant papers, but based on the discussions I've read the case looks pretty solid of Carnotaurus at least. I also think the evidence that Allosaurus had a wide gape is pretty sound, it's just as simple as estimating the jaw muscle anatomy which is pretty straightforward. Whether that means it used a hatchet-like bite or just used it to get a better grip on big sauropod flanks are separate issues. I'd be wary around this issue because it tends to get tied up with the question of theropod cranial kinesis (i.e. jaws spreading like a snake), which a few fringe workers support but is 99% sure to be totally bogus.
I don't know if a similar study has been done for carcharodontosaurs, but if the paper cited Acrocanthosaurus having a smaller gape, then somebody must have looked into it at some point, and until further study is done it's safer to assume that other carcharodontosaurids had a gape similar to Acro until proven otherwise. But keep in mind that even if other dinosaurs had a very wide gape, we can't necessarily assume they all used the same attack method. Wide gapes can have a variety of functions. MMartyniuk (talk) 01:17, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hi again! Right now, everything about the Triceratops mummy is pure rumor, I don't think it's even been announced. As I remember it was "leaked" on the old version of DinoForum, which is now gone. All we know is what you said: broad, narrow belly scales, typical dinosaurian upper body scales save the unusual raised bumps on the larger ones. Anything regarding measurements etc. will have to wait for the paper which could still be years away (unless there's a documentary about it like for Leonardo, which is itself still not published). I haven't heard of this supposed Pachyrhinosaurus with bones in its stomach, and I suspect this is a case of the Telephone Game, because there IS an undescribed Psittacosaurus with bones in its stomach. Rumors like this tend to get exaggerated in the telling. Again, nobody knows anything about it other than it exists, save presumably for the people currently studying the specimen. There isn't much in the way of good studies on ornithischian integument either. There are a few papers on the Psittacosaurus specimen, but most of them are by BANDits who either think they're collagen (older papers) or think they're some kind of unspecific external structure (newer papers by the smae people I think, those guys can never make up their minds). I believe the newer Beipiaosaurus feather paper talked about them a little and said they were hollow, but based on opposite evidence they used for theropods (they said basically" the edges of therizinosaur feathers are dark, indicating they're hollow. The center of psittacosaur feathers are dark, meaning they were hollow). Self contradictory, and I'm taking that to mean psittacosaur quills are NOT hollow, but who knows. No studies of Tianyulong have been published since it was described, so no new info there. I haven't heard about this possible chimera issue, where did you hear that? Either way the quills on Tianyulong aren't restricted to the tail so I'm not sure what impact that would have if it's true. For what it's worth, feather development/evolution guru Richard Prum was on The Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast a few months ago talking about feathered dinos, and his opinion is that ornithischian quills are not homologous with feathers. But nothing on that has actually been published yet. That's the problem with science in the internet age... constantly being teased with bits of info that probably won't be expanded on in any significant way for years and years... MMartyniuk (talk) 23:21, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hey Eriorguez, I agree the Toro/Trike paper makes a pretty damn convincing case. Very interesting to the the transitional features in the AMNH trike specimen I had previously blogged about being more toro-like than trike-like, too. I'd wait until further papers come out supporting this before going o a pop culture campaign, though, to see how widely accepted it becomes. Also, Denver Fowler has said there are several follow up papers on the way to address more specific details, like what becomes of the various species within Trike and Toro (he also promised the Agathaumas issue would at least be mentioned in one of these). The relevant papers collapsing the edmontosaurs are next up to the plate, I assume. As for Deinocheirus and Therizinosaurus, no news on that front. The height estimation paper was based on existing described material, nothing new. Just stating the obvious really: among all the hubbub over whose theropod is biggest, Deinocheirus has always stood alone as a pretty clear winner, just without sufficient material to "prove" it directly. There's still supposed to be new Deinocheirus material in the pipeline, but considering they only rediscovered the locality a year or so ago, it could be a decade before it sees print. :( MMartyniuk (talk) 02:50, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hi again! The thing about the Spinosaurus tail is that, while I agree it looks a little short in Hatman's skeletal, keeping it that short was the only way I could get it to match up with the 14-15m estimate (note the tails will also seem a bit shorter due to the new down-curved pose, necessary to see where the tail end). Proportionally, the new tail is a bit longer than Hartman's as well. The old Spinosaurus silhouette was based on SteveOC's illustration, but on re-examination I found the neck and torso were too long, so I made the tail longer to compensate. I'm also hesitant to use a Baryonyx length tail as there are a lot of "fanboys" out there still sore over the Tyrannosaurus/Spinosaurus fight in Jurassic Park and it's easy to claim cheating by adding a long tail. So I went conservative. Some larger theropods do tend to shorten the tail compared to their smaller relatives (though not always, check out the revised tail length on Carcharodontosaurus, and that may even be too short but I wanted to keep it within published length estimates). As for Velociraptor, I've been on a scale chart bender these last few days so maybe I'll tackle that one now! It is looking very dated, as it was my very first size comparison done nearly 4 years ago. MMartyniuk (talk) 00:14, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, having done a quick look into this, it seems all spinosaurid tails are about as complete--that is, not at all. Even Hartman's rigorous skels of Bary and Sucho show about 80% of the tail is missing. So we really have no idea the actual length of a spinosaur tail. The Carch tail does look odd, I based this on the Sereno skeletal. While the tail is very incomplete the, vertebrae are large and imply the tail was fairly long. I was also surprised at the relative size of the arms/hands as I'd previously restored those based again on Mapusaurus. Saouth American carchs seem to have been going tyrannosaur with the arms a bit.
Happy to oblige on the dromies. I've just re-done Utahraptor and Velociraptor and have a fairly recent Deinonycus handy so it's not too much trouble. Oh, and on T. rex having a "heavier build", I've seen this trotted out a lot (and actually I'm a little afraid I started this meme on an old forum...) but, while it was certainly "sockier", I'm not sure how you could qualify it as heavier built. For one, it was certainly more pneumatized and air-filled than spinosaurs. And second, Mickey Mortimer pointed out that in the basic construction of the bones, spinosaurs are ridiculously heavily-biult, to the point that the 20t weight estimates begin to look plausible... MMartyniuk (talk) 23:00, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strike that, uploaded larger version. Also, just for fun I did one for Achillobator, which I think is often overlooked as the closest dromaeosaur in size to the ones in JP ;) [[2]] MMartyniuk (talk) 00:41, 29 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Heh, I think the main problem with JP raptors = Achillobator is that it wasn't discovered until over 10 years following the release of the book ;) I'd chalk the old canard that Deinonychus was as tall as a man to it being frequently described as "man sized", not man height. "Size" usually refers to general massiveness, after all. That and the fact that it came at an awkward transitional period in the Dino Renaissance, when theropods were still depicted reasonably upright and high-headed, but clearly Deinonychus with its stiffening features was not a tail dragger. Deinonychus is man height the same was T. rex could look in your second story window in those old books. Crichton just ran with it. It looks like your right above compy size vs. dromie size. The first thing that occured to me is that Dilong is essentially compsognathid in build and about the length of Velociraptor or Dromaeosaurus. Therion et al. list Dilong as 2m and only 4.3kg, compared to 14kg for Velociraptor and 16kg for Dromaeosaurus. I blame the fact that compies are all tail. Compsognathids and coelophysids would have been similar in general proportions, but would look obviously different. Off the top of my head, coelos would have longer, more triangular skulls and longer necks. Many compsognthids would have had relatively longer tails compared to the rest of their body. Arm and leg proportions would probably be about the same. But yeah, Procompsognathus looks like a mini-Coelophysis to me :) MMartyniuk (talk) 07:42, 31 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Jaime Headden actually did a blog post on basal and potential basal tyrannosauroids the other day: [3] Apparently there are some studies in the works to try to resolve the relationships of these things, but precise relationships aside, like basal members of the three paravian lineages, these guys are all pretty interchangeable, and it wouldn't be wrong to say tyrannosaurs evolved directly from a coelurid or compsognathid "grade" dinosaur, whether or not coelurids/compies themselves happen to fall one notch closer to tyrannosaurs or to birds in this week's analysis. Whether some of them are maniraptoran as has been suggested would pretty much require the ornithomimosurian equivalent of Haplocheirus so we can get a better view of the sequence of basal forms from Tyrannoraptora-Maniraptoriformes-Maniraptora. And no, unfortunately no name for Ovis + Paraves yet... well, actually there is one apomorphy-based clade that circumscribes the same group as of right now, Aviremigia.MMartyniuk (talk) 23:33, 31 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The best analogue I've read for the seemingly rapid change in pachy head gear among animals of essentially the same size is the comparison with modern birds. We're conditioned to think of growth in our own mammalian terms, gradually acquiring adult characteristics as we grow larger. But in many birds, secondary sexual characteristics emerge abruptly after sexual maturity. Cassowaries, for example, reach full size *before* their distinctive crest sprouts up seemingly overnight. You'd expect ornithischians to have a growth pattern somewhat similar, but also with the caveat that they may have continued growing to a significant degree during adulthood, like crocodilians. So the largest pachy in the chart would be an old, mature adult, the orange specimen a newly sexually mature adult, and Stygimoloch sort of a "transitional sequence between it and the smaller Dracorex. However, I agree that in this early stage of investigation, it's likely Dracro-Stygi, but Stygi=Pachy requires some more evidence. Right now, I'm using a break from work to re-vamp my old scale charts so I can incorporate a scale chart section on my web site, but I may get to some new ones for new groups. I'll definitely revisit the various tyrannosaurs. MMartyniuk (talk) 00:12, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, well it's an interesting idea, but while I'm not sure of the details, I don't think Balaur and Variraptor/Pyroraptor look like synonyms. Pyroraptor, for example, has an ulna around the same length as its metatarsus, while in Balaur the MTs are much shorter than the ulna. Also, just from a biogeographical standpoint, they'd be living on different, isolated islands or larger island-like land masses, so you'd expect them to be at least different species. It would be odd for them to be identical, at least. Development hell, haha. I have too many projects/ideas there... Spinosaurids could be a possiblity soon, I'd forgotten about that one. The blue whale could be an interesting excercize to add to a sauropod chart, maybe I could do something for the Largest Animals article (say, largest known complete dino, Amphi, and blue whale). MMartyniuk (talk) 07:44, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
Well you've inspired me to finally finish my spinosaur scale chart, it's up now :) [4]MMartyniuk (talk) 01:56, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
Yes, very annoying this is the same user who reverted my Theropods chart a few weeks ago too. Not sure what his problem is. Maybe an argument for simply deleting old versions rather than updating a single file. MMartyniuk (talk) 04:08, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Erio, sorry for the late response. I don't have the "My Theropod Is bigger Than Yours" Therion et al. paper handy to double check their method, but that was the primary source for finding Carch very slightly larger than Gig. Remember that at this scale, the resolution for size estimates are probably not sufficient to distinguish a meter or two, so while the precise details of estimates vary, it's better to regard all of these giant theropods as approximately the exact same size. I'm also not sure if this took into account the second species of Carch which had a larger skull, and which specimen of gig they used. The estimate-based-on-skull-length technique may not work as well on a partial dentary, which is all the largest Gig is.
I'll see if I can put together a size chart of Morrison theropods in the next week or so--I'll have to see how many base silhouettes I lost in the HD crash that wiped out most of my original diagrams a few years back... and I prefer to do originals rather than adaptations of CC licensed stuff nowadays anyway so they tend to take longer. What I've been finding is that many illustrations out there don't do a very good job of lining up with skeletals, either due to perspective or proportion issues. This is true of probably 90% of non-maniraptoran theropod (and hadrosaur, for some reason) illos on wiki :P .MMartyniuk (talk) 23:31, 27 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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