large Argentine specimens

[rowe@lepomis.psych.upenn.edu (Mickey Rowe)]

The tremendous theropod from Argentina got some press over the
holidays.

Appenzeller, T. (1994). "Argentine Dinos Vie for Heavyweight Titles",
   _Science_, 266:1805.

If you've been on the list for any length of time, then there isn't
anything there about the theropod that Tom Holtz hasn't already told
us (though Tom's statements probably seem to carry more weight (no pun
intended) when they're published in _Science_ than when they're
distributed from here :-)

On the other hand, there is a bit of discussion about a sauropod,
_Argentinosaurus_ which I don't recall Tom telling us much about
before.  Gregory Paul estimates the mass of _A._ (a titanosaurid) at
80-100 tons.  

The article mentions that such large sizes have large implications for
theories about dinosaurian metabolism.  Peter Dodson has calculated
that just about any animal larger than an elephant could not shed heat
fast enough to prevent cooking itself if it had a typical avian or
mammalian metabolic rate (African elephants would probably have
difficulty if they couldn't radiate heat through their ears).

If you happen to be in a library which carries _Science_, I recommend
you pull up the article.

-- 
Mickey Rowe     (rowe@lepomis.psych.upenn.edu)