Size comparisons

[GuateGojira]

(04-17-2022, 04:30 AM)Mwarcaar Wrote: That is NOT how science works. If that will be true, how do you think that paleontologists recontruct the extint animals? Check Giganotosaurus and Spinosaurus, just to mention a few famous ones, they are know from few fossils but using relatives they manage to reconstruct they sizes. The same is with many, many, many prehistoric specimens"

the spinosaurus is the perfect example of why estimates and reconstructions should be taken with skepticism. look how the weight, size and appearance of this animal have changed over the course of discoveries and it is not about to stop until we find a complete skeleton and even if we find one there is will always have debates about his weight and appearance. and that would be totally understandable because that's how science works




"With Pleistocene animals, like Smilodon, is more easier to calculate the sizes thanks to the complete or semi-complete specimens that we have. Again, like I said, a simple escalation can be done and we can get the size of incomplete specimens.

Weights are going to be always estimations, because we can't weigh an extint animal, but with time those estimations are more reliable with more studies done. At the moment, "up to 400 kg" or a little more is the most reliable for Smilodon populator."

no it is not easier to estimate the weight of the smilodon populator since there is no modern equivalent. it is already difficult to do for panthera spelaea and atrox which we have an extremely close modern equivalent, namely the lion.
weight estimates will never be reliable, 400 kg for the smilodon populator is only one estimate among others

You don't even got my point. Like I said, with the new studies we got the better our understanding of unknown animals, like Spinosaurus, but for known animals like Smilodon, which we have several specimens is a lot easier to extrapolate, wich is the fact that you try to deny.

Also, you don't even read correctly what I put, I said "SIZE" not "WEIGHT", read again, I said "with Pleistocene animals, like Smilodon, is more easier to calculate the sizes thanks to the complete or semi-complete specimens that we have. Again, like I said, a simple escalation can be done and we can get the size of incomplete specimens". Now you get it?

Of course that body mass is dificult, but we are NOT talking about body mass here, we are talking about size, height and length, don't you? And that is why I mentioned the weight here, like an example, but now that you mention the Panthera atrox and Panthera spelaea, so based in your logic, the giant cave cat with a skull of nearly 490 mm is not bigger than the averge sized complete skeleton from Mosbach which is marginally larger than a modern lion/tiger with a skull of c.410 mm, correct?

So according with you NO animal can be escalated based in relatives or specimens from its own species because is fals, fake, unreliable, or whatever word you can use? So we can use only the "complete" skeletons to know the size and any other smaller or larger animal is unreliable and imposible to know its size? Reply