Re: Acrocanthosaurus

[MKIRKALDY@aol.com]

In a message dated 1/23/00 9:45:39 PM Eastern Standard Time, ceevans@home.com 
writes:

>  This has been bothering me ever since I read Raptor Red. Now, here it
>  is: in Raptor Red, Acrocanthosaurus is described as being a 3-ton, 30
>  foot long allosaurid-like predator. But while I was reading the book, I
>  stumbled upon many web-sites(their names escape me at the moment)that
>  said that Acrocanthosaurus seriously challenged T-Rex as largest
>  predator. Now, to contend with T-Rex, that would mean that
>  Acrocanthosaurus would have to be in excess of 7 tons and be over 40
>  feet in length. Does anyone know just how big this creature was?

To borrow from the North Carolina State Museum of Natural History's
web site about their _Acrocanthosaurus_, which is the most complete 
specimen yet found:

(http://www.naturalsciences.org/acrofac.htm)
"Comparison to T. rex: About the same length as T. rex, not quite as tall, 
one to two tons lighter. Acro possessed a less muscular, narrower skull 
than T. rex and had longer, more powerful forelimbs and shorter hind 
limbs. Its thinner teeth were used for tearing meat from bones, while 
T. rex's thicker teeth could crush bones. Acro belonged to a different 
family of dinosaurs, unrelated to the ancestry of T. rex."

The web sites may have meant that Acro was the largest predator of
its time (40 feet long and  2.6 tons), but _Acrocanthosaurus_ and 
_Tyrannosaurus rex_ lived 45 million years apart so neither challenged 
the other.

Mary
mkirkaldy@aol.com