Re: Giganotosaurus

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <th81@umail.umd.edu>]

At 05:13 PM 10/24/96 +0930, Lawrence Dunn wrote:

>Did I miss out on the description of Giganotosaurus, or is it still in
>the works?  If it's been published, could someone tell me where?

The original paper was by Coria and Salgado, and appeared in the summer of
1995 in Nature.

I believe a longer paper will be available in the forthcoming Gondwana
dinosaurs volume of the Memiors of the Queensland Museum.

>On the same subject, what's the current theory of the Giganotosaurus's
>feeding strategies based on likely prey, body dynamics, etc.?

Nobody has really dealt with this yet, but the adaptations of this puppy
aren't much different from those of other big allosauroids
(Carcharaodontosaurus, Acrocanthosaurus, etc.).  It occurred in the same
horizon as Rebbachisaurus tessonei, and is somewhat lower in the Rio Limay
Fm. than Argentinosaurus (but perhaps that genus will be found in the same
horizon eventually).  Much as in other allosauroid-dominated communities,
sauropods seem to be the most common known large herbivores.

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Vertebrate Paleontologist     Webpage: http://www.geol.umd.edu
Dept. of Geology              Email:th81@umail.umd.edu
University of Maryland        Phone:301-405-4084
College Park, MD  20742       Fax:  301-314-9661

"There are some who call me...  Tim."
-- Tim the Enchanter, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"
---------- subtitle --[Monty Python ik den Holy Grailen]

"Tim?!?  They called me TIM?!?!"
-- Tom the Paleontologist, on seeing "The Ultimate Guide to T. rex" :-)