SUE IS DETHRONED!

[SBell]

Phil Currie used to joke that no matter what, there would be a large number of people that maintained that Sue holds all of the records.

After all, it cost several million dollars!

But the funniest thing to me is all of the mentions of the skeleton going on display this May. There's already a mount in Eastend Saskatchewan. I used to work there until they laid me off. Of course, they're no longer open year round like back in my days, just May to September.

I recommend waiting until the skeleton is up in the RSM in Regina. Eastend is a terrible town and in the middle of literal nowhere.

But it does have the skeleton mounted in a pose of my design. Not sure what they'll do in Regina, they've had to renovate just to fit the skeleton!

[suspsy]

I'm hoping (probably against hope) that Scotty's new fame will prompt either the ROM in Toronto or the CMN here in Ottawa to acquire a cast. Don't really have any opportunity to visit Regina in the foreseeable future, not unless my wife has to go there for work.

[SBell]

I'm hoping (probably against hope) that Scotty's new fame will prompt either the ROM in Toronto or the CMN here in Ottawa to acquire a cast. Don't really have any opportunity to visit Regina in the foreseeable future, not unless my wife has to go there for work.

There's... one in Australia? Maybe not helpful.

It could happen, but those museums often prefer to just take fossils from the western provinces and display them  Although, honestly, the RSM has traditionally been really slow about this stuff (it's their specimen) so it could take a while if those places wanted one

[Ikessauro]

That's right, folks, Tyrannosaurus rex has regained the title of biggest meat-eating dinosaur in terms of mass! 

Hasn't it always been considered as such? Since despite it being not as long as the largest carcharodontosaurids,or Spinosaurus, it still had much more weight.

BTW, how long is that specimen? I've searched for it and can't find how long it is

EDIT-Okay, I found it.Apparently its size is 12.1m ,but that's shorter than Sue anyways.So this news is practically irrelevant (aside from the fact that a new Tyrannosaurus specimen has been found ) .We also knew Tyrannosaurus was the biggest in terms of bulk anyways.

12.1 metres is nearly the same as 12.3 metres, so length is not the core factor here. What matters is mass. Sue has been estimated to weigh 9 tons, but Scotty's estimate is 10 tons. If you saw the two of them alive and walking side by side, you'd be hard-pressed to determine who's bigger, but Scotty wins out in the end. Also, Scotty isn't new; it was discovered back in 1991, excavated in 1994, and there's a mounted cast at the T. rex Discovery Centre in Saskatchewan that's been there since 2012.

Paleontologists and enthusiasts are well aware that T. rex has long been thought to be the heaviest theropod, but many current dinosaur books and museums state that Giganotosaurus or Spinosaurus was heavier. This paper will help get the word out, once the media picks up on it.

So no, not irrelevant at all.

Where that 10 tons mass came from? The paper states 8870 KG. That's at least one ton and some short of 10

[suspsy]

Where that 10 tons mass came from? The paper states 8870 KG. That's at least one ton and some short of 10

8870 kg = 9.8 US tons.

[KeU]

Snippet of the table from the new paper from Person.


Remember, these weight estimates are purely from the femur circumference and nothing else.
For example, Spinosaurus does appear to have very thin femurs, suggesting a light animal, but it does have much denser bones which helps support more body mass and given its aquatic lifestyle, it does not need massive leg bones.

[Ikessauro]

Where that 10 tons mass came from? The paper states 8870 KG. That's at least one ton and some short of 10

8870 kg = 9.8 US tons.

Oh, I get it. US should definitely adopt the metric system... 

[BlueKrono]

Where that 10 tons mass came from? The paper states 8870 KG. That's at least one ton and some short of 10

8870 kg = 9.8 US tons.

Oh, I get it. US should definitely adopt the metric system... 

We really should.

[suspsy]

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the US to adopt the metric system.

This is an article by Brian Switek with some very important observations. It can be admittedly fun and amusing to argue over who's truly the biggest (for me, at least), but at the end of the day, nobody would be able to discern the size difference between Scotty and Sue if they were both alive and stomping towards you with their mouths open!

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/laelaps/is-scotty-the-biggest-t-rex-maybe-not/

[Creature]

Indeed! Sue definitely isn't bothered, (and is probably more concerned about whether or not Scotty will help them overthrow the mammals).


_{(Sue also probably wants you to follow them on Twitter.)}

[KeU]

Comparison of the Sue and Scotty, courtesy of thedinorocker (www.deviantart.com/thedinorocker) on deviantart.
Sue skeletal done by Scott Hartman and Scotty's by Randomdinos (www.deviantart.com/randomdinos).

[suspsy]

Neat little article about the upcoming Scotty exhibit at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum. I have to say, I absolutely love the artwork by Beth Zaiken! Scotty looks like a huge, hulking, tough-as-nails fighter!

https://www.cjme.com/2019/04/15/scottys-66-million-year-journey-to-the-royal-sask-museum/?platform=hootsuite

[amargasaurus cazaui]

hopefully since they are mounting a cast they at least make the skull itself viewable as was done with Sue

[Syndicate Bias]

I have a question.

Are Tyrannosaurus Rex fossils very common in the uncommon world of fossils as we know of today?

I'm just curious because I'm still waiting for the next big theropod or another Spinosaurus or Giganotosaurus or Carcharodontosaurus to be found.

[amargasaurus cazaui]

Simple natural laws...walk the savannah of Africa and for every mile you go you will find ten prey animals to every predator. Translate that to fossils.....if a dinosaur fossil is rare to start with and the odds are one in ten....that its a predatory dinosaur...there you go

[Syndicate Bias]

While that is true I must either be hearing of the same T Rex fossils or there's really an abundance of them. Weren't Egypt and Morocco also more of a lush environment when Spinosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus roamed about?

I get what you're saying it's just that it seems like they're really putting alot of effort in finding T Rex fossils. But that's just my very superficial view of it since I'm not in the field. Maybe Dr.Admin knows?

[CityRaptor]

It's probably more related to the fact that Tyrannosaurus gets more publicity.

[suspsy]

It's probably more related to the fact that Tyrannosaurus gets more publicity.

I'm not so sure about that. I'd say it has more to do with geography. T. rex has the good fortune of laying in fossil beds that generally do an excellent job of preserving their residents and are not all that difficult to access. The Hell Creek Formation in Montana and South Dakota, the Lance Formation in Wyoming, the Alberta badlands, and the ones in the southern US are remote, but they're not hard for palaeontologists and fossil hunters to get to.

By contrast, the Kem Kem of Morocco where Nizar Ibrahim found his Spinosaurus is much, much harder to get to, more dangerous, and less likely to yield complete or near-complete specimens.

[Shark Toothed Lizard]

I'm looking through this forum and already see people wanting a re-match with the Spinosaurus. The Spino from jp3 is far from accurate and isn't even a fair fight. I personally don't care who wins, since they never fought.

[Ravonium]

I'm looking through this forum and already see people wanting a re-match with the Spinosaurus.

Not to mention that the consensus amongst those who thought about the question with the real-life animals was already leaning fairly strongly towards T. rex (due to it being bipedal, comparitively more bulky and having teeth better suited to injure it's opponent). All this discovery would do is make the consensus lean even further in that direction.