Mapusaurus, bigger than T. rex?
6:47 am
National Geographic is reporting on a new meat-eating dinosaur from Argentina, which may have been larger, sleeker, and more agile than Tyrannosaurus rex, and might have hunted in packs.
Mapusaurus roseae, “Earth lizard of the rose-colored rocks,” is the newest member of the Carcharodontosauridae, a family of meat-eating dinosaurs that hunted big game across Africa and South America during the Cretaceous period. Two other carcharodontosaurs rivalled T. rex in size, the African Carcharodontosaurus and the South American Giganotosaurus. Researchers found the remains of at least seven Mapusaurus individuals buried together, which may indicate that this 40-foot+ long bruiser traveled in packs.
Afarensis has the story with a nice big reconstruction of the skull. The technical description is available to download from this month’s issue of Geodiversitas (direct PDF link).
I have spent the last half hour or more visiting site after site, mostly science pages and some news pages trying to find a single datum on this Mapusaurus skull. Beyond the blurbs about it being guessed it was about 41 feet long, no indications of the length, width or height of the skull. No photos of the original skull on site, that is, where it was discovered, no useful information of relative size, such as a yard-stick or a man with a yard stick standing next to it….a dog, really helpful. Just blurbs and speculations, some data about the teeth being like “knives” but no close up of the teeth. I mean, I would have expected to find some real meat to this story. I guess we’ll have to wait for the “history” channel or some National Geographic special. What a disappointment. The internet is really dilute. Can you point us to an in depth site on this animal?
Hi Roger -
Who needs an in-depth site when you can go direct to the source? The paper describing Mapusaurus is still freely available here. I haven’t heard of any further papers written about this animal, so the sum total of published scientific knowledge about Mapusaurus is available at your fingertips!
Not too shabby!