Yutyrannus huali

[DinoFan83]

To put the massive size of this animal's head into perspective, I think a remade version of a size comparison I posted a while back will be quite useful.

Here's a size comparison of the lateral and dorsal views of the skulls of a 2 tonne hippo (60 cm) and 403 kilogram Yutyrannus (ZCDM V5001, 80 cm). Despite the mammal outweighing the dinosaur by a factor of almost 5, and despite how massive a hippo's skull is for its size, its skull is still 1/3 smaller than that of the dinosaur and is considerably less robustly built for its length as well. 
I'm honestly quite surprised how few have remarked on how proportionally large and robust Yutyrannus' skull is, instead focusing almost solely on the protofeathers.

*This image is copyright of its original author

Reply