Re: T.REX Vs. giganotosaurus

[Jeff Hecht <jhecht@world.std.com>]

Chris wrote:
>
>Everybody knows that giganotosaurus is "supposedly" bigger than T rex.
>But is it? The reason I bring this up is because paleontologists say
>that giganotosaurus is about 43 feet in length. However, the biggest T
>rex was about 45-48 feet in length. Does anyone know more about this?
>
I wrote an article comparing Giganotosaurus, Tyrannosaurus, and
Acanthrosaurus a couple of years ago for the late, lamented EARTH magazine.
Although the skulls differ in shape and somewhat in size, at the time it
was very difficult to make an accurate call on which had the larger body.
There's inevitably some uncertainty in putting the bones back together to
make a complete beast, compounded by the problem of missing pieces, and the
animals themselves differ slightly in build. Add those uncertainties
together, and the paleontologists I talked with couldn't make an
authoritative call on which was bigger.

Jeff Hecht     Boston Correspondent    New Scientist magazine
525 Auburn St.,          Auburndale, MA 02466             USA
tel 617-965-3834 fax 617-332-4760 e-mail jhecht@world.std.com
URL: http://www.sff.net/people/Jeff.Hecht/
see New Scientist on the Web: http://www.newscientist.com/