blaze
Paleo-artist 
Posts: 766
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Post by blaze on Jul 17, 2015 5:14:55 GMT 5
I suppose that is because a genus already refers to a group, what exactly one would refer to with a plural of Paraceratherium? is it species among Paraceratherium? individuals among all species of Paraceratherium? in such cases Paraceratherium alone works (largest Paraceratherium x individual, largest individual of Paraceratherium)
Of course if one wants to make a latinized plural one should strive for the correct one but why make a latinized plural when we don't speak latin? it is true that we tend to convert genus name to common names but in such cases, the new common name is no longer capitalized and in italics, it becomes a word of the respective language doesn't it? meaning that normal plural rules of the specific language apply rather than those of latin, at least that's how I've encountered in technical books in scientific papers, uintatheres, brontotheres, entelodonts and so on.
Anyway back on topic, yes, 4.8m tall Paraceratherium rests on very flimsy evidence
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jul 17, 2015 8:45:04 GMT 5
I suppose that is because a genus already refers to a group, what exactly one would refer to with a plural of Paraceratherium? is it species among Paraceratherium? individuals among all species of Paraceratherium? in such cases Paraceratherium alone works (largest Paraceratherium x individual, largest individual of Paraceratherium) Of course if one wants to make a latinized plural one should strive for the correct one but why make a latinized plural when we don't speak latin? it is true that we tend to convert genus name to common names but in such cases, the new common name is no longer capitalized and in italics, it becomes a word of the respective language doesn't it? meaning that normal plural rules of the specific language apply rather than those of latin, at least that's how I've encountered in technical books in scientific papers, uintatheres, brontotheres, entelodonts and so on. Anyway back on topic, yes, 4.8m tall Paraceratherium rests on very flimsy evidence For what it's worth, the plural of "platypus" is "platypodes" rather than "platypuses". Those examples you threw out are general terms for clades, etc. Downscaling from the ~4.8-meter tall, ~16.5-tonne Paraceratherium estimates yields ~12 tonnes(give or take a few hundred kilograms) if it only had a ~4.3ish meters SH. |
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blaze
Paleo-artist
Posts: 766
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Post by blaze on Jul 17, 2015 9:18:10 GMT 5
Platypodes would be the correct greek plural but is not the common plural and certainly not in English, do a google scholar search of "platypodes" it'll give you 24 results half of them old French publications, google even suggests that if you actually meant "platypuses", search that instead and you get 1840 results, so in technical literature "platypuses" gets used overwhelmingly more. The difference is also very big if you do a normal search. (though the ratio is 31:1 rather than 76:1).
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Post by Infinity Blade on Jul 27, 2016 19:58:57 GMT 5
It's been a year now. Does the 22 tonne estimate for P. namadicus still stand up to scrutiny?
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Post by jhg on Mar 11, 2017 3:36:46 GMT 5
Whatever. Paraceratherium is still cool as ever and still the largest rhinoceros.
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Post by Infinity Blade on Sept 26, 2021 8:48:36 GMT 5
Uhh, guys...?
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Post by Supercommunist on Sept 28, 2021 8:24:09 GMT 5
I'm guessing palaeoloxodon is going to get downsized?
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Post by Infinity Blade on Sept 28, 2021 8:48:41 GMT 5
It's more that this particular species of Paraceratherium may rival even P. namadicus. Perhaps even taken its crown back. Supposedly, at least. Both of these specimens (the rhino and the elephant) are highly fragmentary.
Wouldn't bet against the possibility that neither turns out to be as big as thought later on, though.
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Post by Supercommunist on Sept 28, 2021 23:08:25 GMT 5
Ah, I just assumed that because we only had that one bone, that there was no basis to assume it was as big as suggested. I did notice that the paracer picture was a lot bulkier than other depictions I've seen.
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Post by Infinity Blade on Sept 29, 2021 0:43:52 GMT 5
Well to be honest, the fragmentary nature of the elephant is certainly valid grounds to be skeptical of the size estimate, among others that I've explained in the past (i.e. that we've literally never studied this specimen for almost 200 years, that the unit of size it was originally measured in was not standardized back then, yadayada).
The Paraceratherium does seem to have a longer body than in other reconstructions I've seen, which surprised me.
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Post by Infinity Blade on Sept 1, 2022 8:10:52 GMT 5
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