unconfirmed giant animals

[blaze]

There's no 1972 record, he either means the "known" record one from 1974 or the rumored taller one from 1978.

The one from 1955, the Fenykovi elephant, was originally claimed to be 12 tons (short ton) and was supposedly measured at 13ft 2 inches (4.01m) tall when lying down, the one from 1974 was said to have weighted 12 metric tonnes and was supposedly measured at 13ft 8 inches (4.17) when lying down. There's a rumored one that supposedly measured 14ft 6 inches (4.42m) when lying down.

Wood (1981) The Guinnes book of animal animal facts and feats, says that their shoulder height gets higher when measured lying down thus estimates the Fenykovi elephant to actually be 3.81m tall and the 1974 record one to be 3.96m tall, however, Christiansen (2004) cites Hanks (1972) as finding no difference between lying and standing shoulder height.

Since I don't have any of those sources I can't say more about them, I'd like to know how Wood (1981) estimated that difference, I think more than account for lying and standing it probably has to do with hunters measuring following the contours of the body, inflating the measurement.

Using the lying down shoulder heights, following Hanks that there's no difference, I estimate their mass using Johnson & Buss (1965) and Laws et al. (1975) equations for mass from shoulder height.

1955: 9.9 tonnes
1974: 11.0 tonnes
1978: 13.1 tonnes (?)

Following Wood (1981) I get this masses.

1955: 8.5 tonnes
1974: 9.5 tonnes
1978: 11.3 tonnes (?)

The Smithsonian claims the the Fenykovi elephant was 8 tonnes when alive.

Also, it seems African elephant bulls get mammoth-like at really big sizes, comparing both based on this, the shoulder height of the Fenykovi elephant is 109.5% the hip height while Jumbo's is 103.9%. For comparison, Larramendi's skeletal of the Paris Mammuthus meridionalis has shoulders 115.5% taller than its hips but wait, African elephants have tall spines on its posterior lumbars and sacrals while mammoths do not, so we are not measuring the same thing, correcting that, the percentage of the Fenykovi elephant is 114.3%, very mammoth-like indeed.


I scaled the fenykovi elephant based on the forefoot length of 61cm mentioned here, it is a coincidence that it resulted in a 3.81m shoulder height, I really couldn't scale using any of the other measurements, either their limits are not clear or they are supposed to go halfway around, the proportions of the drawing are also off based on them and if you look at the photos of the mount.

At this scale it easily reaches the 8.4m straight length from trunk tip to tail tip given by Fenykovi so I think 3.8m at the shoulder is much more realistic for it than 4m.

[Fragillimus335]

Nov 30, 2013 20:48:34 GMT 5 creature386 said:

Sept 8, 2013 1:33:35 GMT 5 Fragillimus335 said:

The supposed 4.2m shoulder African elephant taken in 1972 that weighed ~12 tons.

Are you talking about the second one mentioned here (probably not, because it's from 1974)?
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/05/AR2005080500317.html

A bigger one, six inches taller, was bagged in Angola in 1974 by E.M. Nielsen Jr., a car dealer from Columbus, Neb.

There was no mention of it's weight, do you have a source for the 12 t thing?

Sorry, it should be 1974! And the weight is from an article I read a long time ago.

[Infinity Blade]

scienceray.com/earth-sciences/paleontology/fossil-found-of-super-t-rex-in-mexico/

^I decided to post this here given it's supposedly a large animal. But know that I don't buy any this for a second.

[theropod]

Hmm, a supposedly 19m long T. rex, from a 3 year old article whose writer isn't even capable of simple maths (62/40=1.55=/=~2!), and that despite claims that it should have been released by now we never heard of.
Now consider that even actual, real fossils known to science lead newspapers to claim complete hogwash (Siats being 9m long, MOR 008's 1.5m skull...)...

I can't seem to find many other sites that even mention it, for sure nothing scientific. Sound's like "20m Peck's rex" to me.

[Infinity Blade]

I've interpreted the supposed discovery as a new species that apparently makes T.rex look like a wimp (so not actually a T.rex), but I think this dinosaur never existed as, like you said, it doesn't seem like there are other sites that mention it.

[theropod]

Yes, from what they claimed it would have to be a new species, but I don't give much credential to that. It's just as possible that this was an specimen of T. rex (if in fact it existed)

[Ceratodromeus]

The giant malaysian retic is a good example of this

"A huge snake was reportedly caught by construction workers in Malaysia a few days ago. The snake has died, the country's wildlife officials report, amid concerns that it might have been mishandled.



The reticulated python (Python reticulatus) was said to measure 24.6 feet (7.5 meters long), making it just 7 inches (17 centimeters) shorter than the largest such snake known in captivity. It also weighed a beefy 551 pounds (250 kilograms), officials said, although those numbers probably still need to be independently verified, says Kenneth Krysko, the herpetology collection manager at the Florida Museum of Natural History.



The big snake was reportedly found last week at a construction site in Paya Terubong on the Malaysian island of Penang. Members of Malaysia’s Civil Defense Force moved the animal and posed for photos and video, in which they can be seen holding the snake, taping its mouth shut, and making a noose around its neck. At one point, one of the workers is seen kicking the snake.



The python was transferred to the country's wildlife officials, who also collected an egg they believe came from the serpent. But on Tuesday the officials pronounced the snake dead.



Shazree Mustapha, a public relations officer at Malaysia’s Civil Defense Force, told reporters the snake “died on her own.”



“Maybe she committed suicide," he said. "Maybe she felt threatened so she killed herself."



But Krysko is highly skeptical of that theory. "A snake wouldn't kill itself," he says. "I don't even know how it would do it."



Krysko says it's unclear if the snake died from being mishandled, "but it is unlikely it would have died in a week if it was left alone in the wild," he says.



"There's no reason to put a noose around its neck," he adds. "You don't want to kick it, and there's no reason to even tape its mouth shut, it's not an alligator. All you have to do is hold on to the back of the head and it's not going to bite you."



With so many workers on the scene stretching the python out, it also would have had no chance to wrap around someone to squeeze them, Krysko notes. (Learn about a reticulated python that gave virgin birth to six babies in 2012.)"
news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/160412-reticulated-python-killed-malaysia/

Some articles claim it to be 8m, but it is likely closer to the 7m mark

[dinosauria101]

Anyone know more about the scant reports of 36 kg AWDs? I've heard the verified record is 30 kg, but occasionally hear 36 kg.

[Infinity Blade]

A fossil whale (Balaenoptera cf. musculus) that may be up to 26 meters long (and also suggesting that über-colossal size in baleen whales goes back farther than thought). These size estimates are based off of an equation using...bizygomatic width? I'm not so sure this size estimate will hold out.

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2019.0175