Tyrannosaurus rex

[DinoFan83]

(06-10-2020, 12:44 AM)JurassicDD Wrote:

(06-10-2020, 12:35 AM)DinoFan83 Wrote: If it doesn't have a detailed description, it's certainly possible it could end up comparable in mass to Sue or Scotty. But if I were you, I would take museum figures of mounted skeletons (not just Tyrannosaurus but of most dinosaurs) with a grain of salt as they are often either taken along the curves or improperly measured.
Examples:
-FMNH states Sue to be 12.8 meters and their Patagotitan to be 37 meters; they are actually 12.3 meters and 31 meters as per Scott Hartman's and Greg Paul's reconstructions of them.
-BHI states Stan to be 12.2 meters; it is actually either 11.78 meters (as per the mount scans of Bates et al. 2009 and Hutchinson et al. 2011) or 11.28 meters (Scott Hartman).
So I'm not saying it's not similarly sized to Sue and Scotty as it very well could be, but don't take mounts at face value.

Im very aware of the issues that some museums have and the issues with tons and tons of skeletal mounts but the best way to know are from detailed studies from actual experts who know more about these animals and there body structure then me and you ever will and sadly we do not have that yet for MOR 980 or a fair few other Tyrannosaurus specimens. The theropod database is full of outdated information i might add. So i wont take mounts at face value ( i rarely do anyway) and you should not take what the theropod database as complete gospel. Im going through the database now and it does not even look like it has any of the updated measurements for Scotty unless im just blind.

I think it's more likely that just Scotty doesn't have its measurements properly updated. Looking at, for example, the rest of the Tyrannosaurus measurements, they seem to be coherent with the rest of the literature (e.g the femur lengths of MOR 980, MOR 555, and BHI 3033 as well as other specimens are consistent with the provided measurement from Larson et al. 2008 (Tyrannosaurus Rex the Tyrant King)). The femur measurement for Scotty is not that far off either from what it actually is. So while a few things may need to be updated and I won't take it as gospel, I believe the Theropod Database should still be a fairly reliable source. I could even email Mortimer and ask them about this, if needed.

EDIT: Looks like Scott Hartman's skeletal for MOR 980 seems to be about 11.7 meters long (link), and Scott likely had access to data, measurements, and whatnot that most other people didn't have when he made it; if he didn't, it would've basically been impossible to make it in the first place. Based on the image you posted, it looks fairly similar in build to AMNH 5027 (who is 11.8 meters long and 6.6 to 6.9 tonnes based on Seebacher et al. 2001 and SIW's GDI of it), and scaling from the AMNH specimen gives ~6.4-6.7 tonnes. 

@tigerluver It's possible these differing measurements are due to differing metrics for measuring. I know some people prefer to measure femurs along their curvature and some like to exclude the femoral head instead of straight line measurements, so maybe varying measurements of femora are due to this. Reply