{"id":178771,"date":"2024-11-20T11:41:15","date_gmt":"2024-11-20T11:41:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/20\/analyze-this-how-big-was-the-biggest-t-rex\/"},"modified":"2024-11-20T11:41:15","modified_gmt":"2024-11-20T11:41:15","slug":"analyze-this-how-big-was-the-biggest-t-rex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/20\/analyze-this-how-big-was-the-biggest-t-rex\/","title":{"rendered":"Analyze This: How big was the biggest T. rex?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"501\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.snexplores.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/1030_AT_TRex_Size_Fig-501x450.jpg?fit=501,450&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Analyze This: How big was the biggest T. rex?\" title=\"Analyze This: How big was the biggest T. rex?\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<p><em>Tyrannosaurus rex<\/em> towered over many other dinosaurs. But the biggest of the king of the dinos <a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/full\/10.1002\/ece3.11658\" rel=\"noopener\">may have been even heftier<\/a> than fossils hint.<\/p>\n<p>Only around 80 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/article\/scientists-say-fossil\">fossil<\/a> <em>T. rex<\/em> skeletons have been found so far, and not all of them are complete. \u201cWe know that there must have been millions and billions of <em>T. rex<\/em> on Earth,\u201d says Jordan Mallon. This paleontologist works at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa. It\u2019s unlikely that the biggest <em>T. rex<\/em> ever is among those 80 skeletons. A group of 80 people picked at random probably wouldn\u2019t include the tallest person on Earth.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"wp-block-sciencenews-inline-related-post alignleft\">\n<h4><a href=\"https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/article\/explainer-how-fossil-forms\">Explainer: How a fossil forms<\/a><\/h4>\n<\/aside>\n<p>To calculate the potential size of the biggest <em>T. rex<\/em>, Mallon teamed up with David Hone. He\u2019s a paleontologist at Queen Mary University in London, England.<\/p>\n<p>Scientists have estimated that some 2.5 billion <em>T. rex<\/em> may have once roamed Earth. But not all would have made it to adulthood. \u201cMost of them didn\u2019t,\u201d Mallon says. \u201cThey were picked off by other <a href=\"https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/article\/scientists-say-predator-and-prey-definition-pronunciation\">predators<\/a>. Or they died of disease. Or they got trampled by a <em>Triceratops<\/em>.\u201d To calculate the spread of sizes across a large group, Mallon\u2019s team used a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/article\/explainer-what-computer-model\">computer model<\/a>. The computer couldn\u2019t handle 2.5 billion dinos, so the pair went with 140 million.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"wp-block-sciencenews-inline-related-post alignleft\">\n<h4><a href=\"https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/article\/explainer-what-is-statistics\">Explainer: What is statistics?<\/a><\/h4>\n<\/aside>\n<p>The researchers based the spread of ages for the 140 million <em>T. rex<\/em> on alligators \u2014 living relatives of <em>T. rex<\/em>. They used mathematical tools called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/article\/explainer-what-is-statistics\">statistics<\/a>. Statistics can use known information from a small group \u2014 such as the 80 fossils \u2014 to calculate trends for a much larger group.<\/p>\n<p>Based on an animal\u2019s bones, scientists can figure out its rough age and weight. Using this information from reports on fossils, Mallon and Hone worked out how <em>T. rex<\/em> body mass increased with age. But just like other animals, not all dinos of the same age are the same size. The researchers reasoned that the variation in sizes among <em>T. rex <\/em>individuals may have resembled that of alligators. Alligators are one of the largest reptiles alive today, and they\u2019re meat eaters like <em>T. rex <\/em>was. This allowed the scientists to estimate body sizes for the 140 million dinos in their group. They used statistics again to find the biggest potential size in a batch of 2.5 billion <em>T. rex<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe estimate that the largest conceivable <em>T. rex<\/em> was probably 70 percent larger than the biggest animal we know of currently,\u201d Mallon says. \u201cThat\u2019s a bit of a mind-boggling thing to think about.\u201d This dino would be 15 meters (49 feet) long and weigh 15,000 kilograms (33,000 pounds). Mallon and Hone shared their results in July in <em>Ecology and Evolution<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>This size is just a rough estimate. \u201cIt&#8217;s a bit of a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/article\/scientists-say-thought-experiment-definition-pronunciation\">thought experiment<\/a>,\u201d Mallon says. Mallon and Hone don\u2019t have the fossils to back up their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/article\/scientists-say-hypothesis\">hypothesis<\/a>. And it\u2019s not clear yet whether the bones of this enormous animal could support the weight suggested by the new study.<\/p>\n<p>It could be a long wait till such a behemoth is found. Based on the rate at which fossils are unearthed, it could be decades until a <em>T. rex<\/em> bigger than 99.9 percent of all others is found. And it could take millennia to dig up one that\u2019s in the species\u2019 top 0.01 percent.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-sciencenews-content-sidebar\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Estimating size<\/h3>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image  has-aligncenter\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>Figure A: <\/strong>Fossils can reveal information about an animal\u2019s age and weight. For instance, patterns of growth in bones can hint at the age of an animal when it died. Based on reports of <em>T. rex<\/em> fossils, researchers made a growth curve for this species. The growth curve shows how the animals\u2019 body mass increases with age.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image  has-aligncenter\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"520\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/1030_AT_TRex_Size_Fig2-520x450.png\" alt=\"a graph showing a size distribution of T. rex individuals of different ages. The range of sizes is very narrow until around age 10, then gets much wider for older animals\" class=\"wp-image-3146318\" style=\"width:520px;height:auto\" \/><figcaption><span class=\"credit wp-credit-3146318\">Mallon and Hone\/<em>Ecology and Evolution<\/em> 2024 (<a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/\" rel=\"noopener\">CC BY 4.0)<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>Figure B: <\/strong>Using a computer model, the researchers estimated the distribution of 140 million theoretical <em>T. rex <\/em>individuals of different ages and sizes. Only around 80 <em>T. rex <\/em>skeletons have been found. The researchers needed more information to figure out how age and size might be spread across a much larger group. So they looked to living <em>T. rex <\/em>relatives. They based the distribution of ages and variation in body size for <em>T. rex <\/em>individuals on alligators.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Data Dive:<\/h2>\n<ol start=\"1\" class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Look at Figure A. What is the body mass of a <em>T. rex<\/em> that is about 12 years old? What about a <em>T. rex<\/em> that is 20 years old?<\/li>\n<li>How does <em>T. rex<\/em>\u2019s growth during the teenage years (13 to 19) compare with its growth after age 20?<\/li>\n<li>Think about how humans grow. How does <em>T. rex<\/em>\u2019s growth compare with that of humans?<\/li>\n<li>Look at Figure B. What does the spread of body mass values look like for <em>T. rex<\/em> at age 10 and below? What does it look like for <em>T. rex<\/em> after age 10?<\/li>\n<li>What is the range of body mass values for <em>T. rex<\/em> individuals that are 15 years old? What about 25 years old?<\/li>\n<li>What is the likely age of the biggest <em>T. rex <\/em>that ever lived?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/article\/biggest-t-rex-size-fossils\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tyrannosaurus rex towered over many other dinosaurs. But the biggest of the king of the dinos may have been even heftier than fossils hint. Only around 80 fossil T. rex skeletons have been found so far, and not all of them are complete. \u201cWe know that there must have been millions and billions of T. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178772,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/1030_AT_TRex_Size_Fig-501x450.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[606],"tags":[4519,995,1424,40977],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178771"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178771"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178773,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178771\/revisions\/178773"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}