Largest sauropods

[theropod]

We should have a thread to discuss these largest known sauropods; potential sizes, biomechanical and ecological aspects and the other stuff linked to them.

For the moment, I'll list some of the largest sauropods, ichnotaxa or other very poorly known taxa will be shown with a question mark:

?Broome Trackmaker (?titanosauria)
Australia, Cretaceous, pes prints up to 1.7m in lenght
dml.cmnh.org/1997Aug/msg00778.html

?Plagne Trackmaker (?brachiosauridae or diplodocoidea)
France, Upper Jurassic?, pes prints? 1.5m wide (2m long?)
svpow.com/2009/10/13/how-big-were-the-biggest-sauropod-trackmakers/
Undeformed?

?Parabrontopodus distercii (?diplodocoidea)
Spain, Upper Jurassic?, pes prints? up to 1.65m wide/long?


The three above are all likely further indication of animals in the classic Amphicoelias fragillimus territory.

?Amphicoelias fragillimus (diplodocoidea)
USA, Tithonian, posterior dorsal partial neural arch and spine (D9 or 10), 150cm, vertebra when complete estimated as 2.3-2.7m tall

svpow.com/2010/02/19/how-big-was-amphicoelias-fragillimus-i-mean-really/
A. altus (Cope, 1877)

Argentinosaurus huinculensis (titanosauria)
Argentina, Cenomanian,
Dorsal vertebrae (up to 1.59m tall) tibia (1.55m), partial femur (est. 2.5m), some ribs, partial sacrum
30-35m, 60-88t
www.miketaylor.org.uk/tmp/papers/Mazzetta-et-al_04_SA-dino-body-size.pdf

Puertasaurus reuili (titanosauria, lognkosauria)
Argentina, Maastrichtian
Vertebrae: C9 (140cm in transverse width including cervical ribs), D2 (106cm tall, 168cm in transverse width), two mid-caudals (undescribed)
30-40m
Dorsal vertebra is not as tall or long as Argentinosaurus, but much broader, more robust and has a bigger centrum (area is 17% greater than in Argentinosaurus). Indicative of a very robust torso.
Giant titanosaur (Dinosauria, Sauropoda) from the Late Cretaceous of Patagonia
paleoking.blogspot.co.at/2010/03/forgotten-giants-1-puertasaurus.html


French monster titanosaur (titanosauria)
France, early Cfretaceous

femur (2.2m+), ?manual ungual (34cm+; what measurement???), ?subadult?

Giant rib

paleoking.blogspot.co.at/2014/07/is-french-monster-euhelopodid.html
dml.cmnh.org/2014Jul/msg00135.html

"Brachiosaurus" nougaredi (brachiosauridae?)
Algeria, lower Cretaceous
partial eroded sacrum missing the first sacral vertebra (130cm, ~160cm when complete, 160% the size of the Berlin Giraffatitan)
35-40, 90t+? (based on Giraffatitan, Brachiosaurus and Sauroposeidon)
So often ignored but it appears to be truly enourmous, much larger than Sauroposeidon or any other "brachiosaur" for that matter. At least as large as Argentinosaurus, larger given it was comparable to other basal macronarians like Brachiosaurus.

Ruayangosaurus giganteus (titanosauria, lognkosaurian?)
China, "early Late Cretaceous"=Cenomanian?
femur (2.35m, relatively slender), tibia (1.35m), dorsal vertebra (Puertasaurus-like?, ~90% the size of P.reuili, centrum ~50cm wide)


Other taxa:
Argyrosaurus, Alamosaurus, Antarctosaurus giganteus, Turiasaurus, Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum, Supersaurus, Apatosaurus, Brachiosaurus, Patagotitan

Further reading:
paleoking.blogspot.co.at/2011/11/15-biggest-dinosaurs-youve-never-heard.html

The Size of the Largest Land Animal
J. E. I. HOKKANEN

[coherentsheaf]

I strongly disagree that these prints provide proof of sauropods in excess of 100tonnes. I even disagree with the suggestion that they are substantial evidence in this direction.

The width of Broome track is indicative of an animal about 80tonnes in mass. Width is a better predictor than length.

The Plagne track seems not to have been documented to my satisfaction.

Amphicoelias has not much going for it given that it is lost a long time ago.

The claim of sauropods more than 100tonnes in body mass is an extraordinary claim, and as Carl Sagan used to say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Not weak circumstantial evidence that does not hold up to scrutiny.

[theropod]

If I'm not mistaken the width you used was just extrapolated from the lenght, wasn't it? And why is wdth a better predictor than length?

[coherentsheaf]

May 20, 2013 4:35:10 GMT 5 theropod said:

If I'm not mistaken the width you used was just extrapolated from the lenght, wasn't it? And why is wdth a better predictor than length?

Nope width was directly measured from the picture of the print fragilimus provided. Width of the print is not as easily distorted to be smaller as length is distorted to be larger.

[theropod]

Why isn't it as easily distorted to be smaller? The walls of a footprint can collapse, or sediments can fill it in.

[coherentsheaf]

May 20, 2013 15:43:24 GMT 5 theropod said:

Why isn't it as easily distorted to be smaller? The walls of a footprint can collapse, or sediments can fill it in.

This for sure happens less often than a footprint in the mud becomes elongated by foot movement. The photograph of the print showed no evidence for sediment distorting the print.

However this irrelevant as your claim was that this print is potential proof, implying that it could convince a skeptic. It can't since another interpretation is possible. As I already explained on carnivora forum we should adopt an intrinsic bias towards conservative explanations and only accept claims of giant size if they are based on strong evidence.

Also note that this print has not been documented to any satisfaction. The longest print documented in Broome is about 1.5m long.

[theropod]

I've changed it into indication. I'll first add the others to get myself a better overview, and hopefully fragillimus will contribute to this thread.
However using width can just as easily underestimate the print if the foot for example simply was longer compared to width, the same way scaling to equal body diameter would overestimate the size of a phyton compared to an elephant. Regardless of philosophy, the possibility of 100t+ sauropods is real.

Btw, on carnivora you posted a comparison showing the cervical of Puertasaurus and a giant specimen of Alamosaurus compared, could you repost that here?

[coherentsheaf]

May 20, 2013 18:10:19 GMT 5 theropod said:

I've changed it into indication. I'll first add the others to get myself a better overview, and hopefully fragillimus will contribute to this thread.
However using width can just as easily underestimate the print if the foot for example simply was longer compared to width, the same way scaling to equal body diameter would overestimate the size of a phyton compared to an elephant. Regardless of philosophy, the possibility of 100t+ sauropods is real.

Btw, on carnivora you posted a comparison showing the cervical of Puertasaurus and a giant specimen of Alamosaurus compared, could you repost that here?

Regarding length vs width: I ran some correlations between width of femur/mass and legth of femur and mass. Width was the better predictor both for transformed and not transformed data:

> cor(mass,fc)
[1] 0.8040969
> cor(mass,fl)
[1] 0.7707564

> cor(log(mass),log(fc))
[1] 0.988889
> cor(log(mass),log(fl))
[1] 0.9644096

I used data from the bne robusticity thread. Not that femur length should be less variable than pes length, since the former is more strongly constrained by the stresses exerted on it. We should expect greater variance in the latter.

Alamosaurus pic:


Fowler, D.W. and Sullivan, R.M. 2011. The first giant titanosaurian sauropod from the Upper Cretaceous of North Amer?
ica. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 56 (4): 685–690.

[theropod]

Thanks for posting, here's the paper link: www.app.pan.pl/article/item/app20100105.html

[Fragillimus335]

Just a few notes... The Parabrontopodus tracks are NOT 1.65m wide, the longest undistorted print is 1.48 meters long. Other lengths are caused by slippage. The Plange are also 1.5m long, not wide. Just look at the pics. Both of these were likely ~50+ meter diplodocids.

The Broome titanosaur was likely a hell of a lot bigger than 80t. Using foot length to hip height equations(FL*4.586 or 4.9=HH) its hip turns out to be just about 8m, and this is supported by the paleontologist who found the track. He has also stated that the sauropod that made this track was ~7 meters at the hip. Any titanosaur with a hip height of 8m is way over 80t.

Don't forget that the width I gave was my own observation of the print, I could be flat out wrong. Also the picture was taken at an unknown angle, so any width measurement would be an underestimate.

[theropod]

I think coherentsheaf's point was rather foot lenght being less reliable than width.

Were are the data and the equation from?

[coherentsheaf]

May 21, 2013 3:00:31 GMT 5 Fragillimus335 said:

Just a few notes... The Parabrontopodus tracks are NOT 1.65m wide, the longest undistorted print is 1.48 meters long. Other lengths are caused by slippage. The Plange are also 1.5m long, not wide. Just look at the pics. Both of these were likely ~50+ meter diplodocids.

The Broome titanosaur was likely a hell of a lot bigger than 80t. Using foot length to hip height equations(FL*4.586 or 4.9=HH) its hip turns out to be just about 8m, and this is supported by the paleontologist who found the track. He has also stated that the sauropod that made this track was 7-8 meters at the hip. Any titanosaur with a hip height of 8m is way over 80t.

Don't forget that the width I gave was my own observation of the print, I could be flat out wrong. Also the picture was taken at an unknown angle, so any width measurement would be an underestimate.

"likely"? I think it as likely below 100 tonnes, since most sauropods were. From there it follows that we need very strong evidence for above 100 tonne sizes.

It is not well documented so this point is moot anyway, but picture you showed was from a plane almost in parallel to the plane of the print. The distortion of the width is proportional to the cosine of the angle between the two planes along the direction of the width. This angle is obviously close to zero. The derivative of the cosine is -sine, therefore the the change of the cosine is quite small close to zero. Therefore the width should not be considered strongly influenced by this angle.

[Fragillimus335]

May 21, 2013 4:29:46 GMT 5 theropod said:

I think coherentsheaf's point was rather foot lenght being less reliable than width.

Were are the data and the equation from?

Source:
www.academia.edu/1504844/Speeds_and_stance_of_titanosaur_sauropods_analysis_of_Titanopodus_tracks_from_the_Late_Cretaceous_of_Mendoza_Argentina

Basically the ratio of foot length to hip height has been estimated at between 4-5.9 for sauropods by different sources. This paper gives 4.586 for derived titanosaurs, and most mounts and high quality skeletals seem to fall around the 4.5-5 range. Hip height is recorded at the rotation point of the head of the femur in the acetabulum. Once again, this means the Broome titanosaur was absolutely MASSIVE. If it did have a hip height of ~8m weights of 200+ tons seem plausible. For reference, Brachio has a hip height of ~3.7 meters.

[theropod]

And the data of Parabrontopodus distercii being deformed and plagne being 1,5m long, not wide (that'd still make it gigantic, especially as there is no indication of deformation)?

[Fragillimus335]

The middle trackway is Parabrontopodus, as you can see, most of those aren't normal sauropod tracks. They are still huge of course, roughly the same size as the Plagne trackmaker. ~1x1.5m corresponding to a ~55m diplodocid

beachcarolina.com/2012/10/05/will-woodside-smash-the-vatican-chalices-of-the-goolarabooloo-people/ -The video of the Broome print being found.