Spinosaurus News ~

[DinoFan83]

@Spalea 

I think there are a few things worth noting about Tyrannosaurus in comparison to Spinosaurus:

1: When you compare a Tyrannosaurus and a Spinosaurus of equivalent mass, and the Tyrannosaurus looks bigger, what you're seeing is volume, not mass. Roughly 9.3 to 9.5 percent of Tyrannosaurus' volume is air, while Spinosaurus is at least as dense as water if not more so. So if a Tyrannosaurus and a Spinosaurus were the same mass, the Tyrannosaurus would look bigger due to possessing more volume.
2: That is a comparison of Sue and MSNM V 4047, which, while large, is still about 400 -900 kg smaller than Sue, at 7.5-8 tonnes compared to 8.4. The largest specimen, NMC 41852, would outmass any Tyrannosaurus we have by at least 2 tonnes (see my post about it on the previous page, very bottom).
3: I'm pretty sure the ribcage on that Tyrannosaurus is overinflated; AFAIK it is based on the mount scan from Hutchinson et al. 2011, which they themselves cite as overinflated. 
Citing directly from them:
''the torso of the mount is inflated in width due to a dorsal displacement of the transverse processes on the trunk vertebrae, which forced a dorsal displacement of the tubercular articulations and a lateral expansion of the rib cage as a whole.''

As for encounters with Carcharodontosaurus on land, the largest Spinosaurus specimens certainly would not have been helpless - they would have been roughly 11-14 tonnes compared to roughly 9-ish tonnes for the largest Carcharodontosaurus, so I think they could have defended themselves by using intimidation. Reply