Giganotosaurus carolinii

[gigadino96]

The holotype skull restored

Name: Giganotosaurus carolinii
Size: ~12,2-12,5 meters long
Mass: ~6-7 t
When: Late Cretaceous, Cenomanian, 97-94 millions years ago
Where: South America
Classification: Animalia, Chordata, Reptilia, Archosauria, Dinosauria, Saurischia, Theropoda, Carnosauria, Allosauroidae, Carcharodontosauridae, Giganotosaurinae, Giganotosaurus, Giganotosaurus carolinii

Giganotosaurus carolinii is a genus of Theropod lived in what is now South America in the stadium of the Cenomanian in the Upper Cretaceous, between 104 and 97 million years ago. It is one of the largest known land predators, maybe even longer than Tyrannosaurus and similar in size with Carcharodontosaurus, but likely smaller than Spinosaurus. Is known from two specimens: MUPCv-ch1, the holotype, was found in 1993 by Ruber carolinii, and described in 1995 by Coria & Salgado. This first specimen measured between 12.2 and 12.5 meters long, and weighed between 4 and 7 tons. A second specimen was found in 2000. It is just a piece of dental, but from this it is estimated that this specimen was 2.2-6.5% larger than MUPCv-ch1, with a total length in the 13 m range and a weight of 7-8 t; however, many paleontologists are dubious about those estimates, and this specimen's exact size cannot determined. His skull was originally estimated 1.56 meters, but was later re-estimated at 180 cm for the holotype and 195 cm for the largest specimen. Only recently Scott Hartman has produced a new reconstruction, this time the skull was 1.54-1.64 m long. Blanco and Mazzetta, in 2001, they estimated that this animal could run up to 14 meters per second (50 km / h). In 2005, François Therrien has estimated that the bites force of this Theropod was three times weaker than that of Tyrannosaurus. Hartman, however, has recently stated that the Giganotosaurus' bite force was in the 20k ballpark. The size of the brain of this animal is estimated at 275 cubic centimeters, roughly about half of that of Tyrannosaurus. His brain case, however, was 18% more elongated than the one of its relative, Carcharodontosaurus. This dinosaur has been classified in the family of Carcharodontosauridae, and in 2006 was put into a new sub-family, Giganotosaurinae, along with his younger relative Mapusaurus.

[theropod]

Hi, nice to see you here Gigadino! I'll add a bit to this profile later.

[gigadino96]

May 25, 2013 17:35:32 GMT 5 theropod said:

Hi, nice to see you here Gigadino! I'll add a bit to this profile later.

Thank you . I do something wrong?

[theropod]

I think you confused a few things. Hartmans skull appears to be less than 1,7m for MUCPV-95 and rather 1,5-1,55 for MUCPv-CH1. Are you sure you don't mean my skull-reconstructions, because the restoration I made reached 1,76m for the upper end and 1,6m for the lower end?
1,8-1,95m also was less of a revision than a very doubful, oddly reconstructed skull. It has never been used in scientific publications since then.
The original lenght for the holotypic skull was 1,53m. Restoring it very conservatively, without adding much to the posterior end of the maxilla and angling the quadrate only moderately relative to a vertical position, yields 1,49m based on Quadrate lenght of 44cm.
If you restore the maxilla longer, it can end up at the upper end I gave. however a lenght greater than 176cm does not appear feasible based on related taxa.
I would also doubt it being significantly longer than C. saharicus' skull, as the latter with a correctly articulated quadrate also reaches ~1,65m which is well within the range for Giganotosaurus. annd I would not refer to Carcharodontosaurus as a smaller relative, from all we know it was just as big.
Also it is known from a lower Cenomanian location (Candeleros formation of Rio Limay subgroup), so there ought to be a precise age-figure somewhere.

[gigadino96]

The restoration of Hartman was smaller than (1.62 m for the paratype) but I used the largest estimate made on the basis of this. 1.8-1.95 meters remained in force for 15 years, so I do not see why not mention it. I never said that his skull was significantly longer than that of C. saharicus, indeed, on YouTube I have said that the two skulls were of very similar size. I said that C. saharicus is a relative a bit smaller because I hypothesize that both animals had the same proportions, and with a smaller skull, C. saharicus would have been smaller.

[theropod]

I doubt C. saharicus had the same proportions as Giganotosaurus, at least at Giganotosaurus higher skull-lenght figures, but that's just my opinion based on the femur.
Of course I would mention the figure, but I would not state it as if it was a rtevision to former estimates and has since been valid.

[gigadino96]

However, I removed that C. saharicus was smaller, although I think so. Everyone has their own opinion on this issue, and for the moment, they were great about the same way.

[creature386]

You included most of the basic facts. It is a nice idea to give quick facts above and a description text below.
You maybe should include something about the classification in your profile, with the diagnostic features and explanations on it's phylogenic position.

[gigadino96]

I put the classification.

[creature386]

From: M. T. Carrano, R. B. J. Benson, S. D. Sampson: The phylogeny of Tetanurae (Dinosauria: Theropoda). In: Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. 10, Nr. 2, 2012, p. 233

[theropod]

paleodb.org/cgi-bin/bridge.pl?a=checkTaxonInfo&taxon_no=54541&is_real_user=1

This is an overview to the features. The femur and skull-lenghts don't seem to have been updated since the original description tough.

[dinosauria101]

I'm very surprised this wasn't posted, but here's Hartman's skeletal

[dinosauria101]

GetAwayTrike Giganotosaurus (probably better than Hartman's due to lacking a protruding pubis/sucked in belly and not hybridized with Mapusaurus needlessly):

[jdangerousdinosaur]

Giganotosaurus holotype by Franoys

[jdangerousdinosaur]

Giganotosaurus holotype with MUCPv-95 most current size estimate diagrams by Franoys