Re: Dinosaur mass table online

[Tim Williams <tijawi@yahoo.com>]

GSP1954@aol.com wrote:


> The super titanosaurs were more like 30 m, and they had long whip
> tails.  Super mamenchisaurs reached 35 m, the length of the newly
> mounted skeleton -- it's one big pappa. 


Be that as it may, I was using the available literature as a guide.  Here, 
mamenchisaurs have been explicitly described as very slender sauropods.  For 
example, in the original description  of _Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum_, 
Russell and Zheng (1993) write:


     "_Mamnechisaurus_ was probably not as ponderously built as were
      _Brachiosaurus_ and _Apatosaurus_... because so much of its length
      consisted of an extremely long and light neck....  The proportions
      of the distal portion of the femoral shaft associated with the type
      skeleton of _M. hochuanensis_... are consistent with a body weight
      similar to that of _Diplodocus_."


Now, I'm not denying that the mounted mamenchisaur skeleton you're referring to 
is "one big pappa".  But to suggest that it was an exceptionally heavily built 
sauropod that could have weighed 75 tonnes in life goes against everything that 
has been said previously about mamenchisaurs.  Again, I'm not saying you're 
wrong, but it's an extraordinary claim.  At the very least, this "big pappa" 
sounds very un-mamenchisaur-like.


Cheers

Tim