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Carnivorous dinosaurs other than the famous t-rex and spinosaurus..

Canada DinoFan83 Offline
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( This post was last modified: 12-09-2020, 07:57 AM by DinoFan83 )

Here is some food for thought on Megalosaurus: It would appear that judging by the proportions of relatives, this animal is a lot less 'vanilla' than many of us think.

Going by GetAwayTrike's skeletal, this is a fairly large skulled animal - for the largest specimen (BMNH R1101, an 83.2 cm ilium), a 115 cm long skull on an animal that appears to be close to 2 tonnes based on a GDI of a non cross-scaled model (the model was 1.9 tonnes but the increased size of the arms and head bring it up to 2). Since all known cranial material was found in isolation and it is not known what size Megalosaurus it belongs to, the skull in GetAwayTrike's skeletal was apparently cross scaled from his Torvosaurus using the ratio of a postcranial element to skull size, but I don't know exactly what he had done as from what I can see, Torvosaurus' proportions result in larger skulls than how he depicted, even if it is fairly large already. 
For example, pubis length. According to the Theropod Database, the pubis of the Torvosaurus holotype is 73.6 cm long compared to a 115 cm skull following GAT's skeletal. Using the scalebar in GAT's Megalosaurus, the pubis length ends up at about 89.9 cm, thus a skull length of 140.4 cm using the pubis to skull ratio of Torvosaurus as opposed to 115. 

Another thing is the forearms - as with the cranial material, the forearm material for Megalosaurus has been found isolated and it's not given that it was from an animal similarly sized to BMNH R1101, even though GAT composited it into the largest individual unlike what he did with the skull.
Therefore, a megalosaur that preserves very complete arm material and associated postcrania (Afrovenator) is a good choice to use as a base. Following the Theropod Database, the Afrovenator holotype had a 40 cm humerus compared to a 56.7 cm ilium, which would result in a 58.7 cm long humerus for BMNH R1101. Also note the size of the very large thumb claw; with this cross scaling, it would have reached 45 cm along the curve.

To put all that into perspective, this is what such an animal would have looked like. I unfortunately cannot yet articulate these images in GIMP, but on the left and center is what the head and body would look like following the above and on the right is the forearm size that this animal would have had. 

*This image is copyright of its original author

These in my opinion make for a set of proportions reminiscent of a big game hunter that needs as much weaponry as possible with which to bring down large prey. Provided the cross scaling is roughly accurate, it would have had a very massive, robust head and very lethal bite to boot, but also quite large, robust, and vicious clawed forelimbs. No other carnivorous dinosaur in this weight class that I am aware of would have had this combination of such a big head together with big arms.
But it doesn't stop there; in fact, this Megalosaurus would have had proportionally more robust forelimbs than a grizzly bear (which are known for being quite robust for a carnivoran, so its forearms would be even more proportionally robust than other carnivorans)!
Based on Campione and Evans (2012) supplementary info, a 436 kg grizzly bear has a 40.1 cm humerus 14.6 cm in circumference. Meanwhile, going by the supplementary material from Benson (2014), a 38.8 cm Megalosaurus humerus is 19.1 cm in circumference, meaning a 58.7 cm Megalosaurus humerus would be about 28.9 cm in circumference.
To be at parity with the megalosaur, the bear would need to be 66.2% greater in linear dimensions (436(1.662)^3=2000), and at parity, not only is the bear's humerus only about 13.5% longer than those of the megalosaur, it is also far more gracile, with a humerus circumference about 19.2% smaller. I find that very impressive; this cross-scaled Megalosaurus not only has a skull over 2.4 times the length of that of an equivalently sized grizzly (but that's to be expected), it rivals or outclasses the bear in the forearm department too.
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RE: Carnivorous dinosaurs other than the famous t-rex and spinosaurus.. - DinoFan83 - 09-24-2020, 08:12 AM



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