Re: [dinosaur] Is Scotty really bigger than Sue

Volumetric models of both specimens result in Scotty being 5% heavier than Sue, and the former has a slightly longer femur (Sue 1321 mm), so Scotty probably was a dash bigger but cannot be sure. Stan which has the longest femur (1350 mm) comes out intermediate in volume but again there is no methodology that can precisely restore mass, all the more so because mass can fluctuate a lot in a given adult. Limb bone circumference is very unreliable even within a taxon as noted by a number of researchers including my paper in Annals of the Carnegie Museum on gigantic sauropods.

-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas Richard Holtz <tholtz@umd.edu>
To: Poekilopleuron <dinosaurtom2015@seznam.cz>
Cc: DML <dinosaur-l@usc.edu>
Sent: Thu, Apr 8, 2021 8:18 am
Subject: Re: [dinosaur] Is Scotty really bigger than Sue

Various researchers (especially Nick Campione and Dave Evans) have found that femoral circumference is a good predictor of body mass. Here is a good recent review of theirs that examines questions of the accuracy and the precision (which are two VERY different things) of mass estimations: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/brv.12638

The femur length of Scotty, though, is in the paper on Table 2: 1330 mm.

On Thu, Apr 8, 2021 at 5:26 AM Poekilopleuron <dinosaurtom2015@seznam.cz> wrote:

Good day!

I seem to be unable to find how long was the skull and/or femur of "Scotty" in the published paper. Is the femur circumference sufficient value to determine that "Scotty" was larger and heavier T. rex individual than "Sue"? Thank you in advance, Tom

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Email: tholtz@umd.edu Phone: 301-405-4084
Principal Lecturer, Vertebrate Paleontology

Office: Geology 4106, 8000 Regents Dr., College Park MD 20742

Dept. of Geology, University of Maryland
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/

Phone: 301-405-6965
Fax: 301-314-9661

Faculty Director, Science & Global Change Program, College Park Scholars

Office: Centreville 1216, 4243 Valley Dr., College Park MD 20742
http://www.geol.umd.edu/sgc
Fax: 301-314-9843

Mailing Address:        Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                        Department of Geology
                        Building 237, Room 1117

                        8000 Regents Drive
                        University of Maryland
                        College Park, MD 20742-4211 USA