
Dreadnoughtus, a 130,000-Pound Dinosaur That Wasn’t Done Growing - mikek
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2014/09/04/this-is-the-kind-of-dinosaur-you-find-in-hollywood
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mrfusion
> Dreadnought's head was probably about the size of a horse's head.

That seems pretty strange. You'd think they'd need huge mouths to eat enough
food to survive.

~~~
Crito
They also mention that it would have had to spend almost the entirety of it's
life eating, rarely even sleeping, and that simply falling over could have
greatly harmed it.

Maybe this was some other sort of generally less unwieldy dinosaur, except
this particular specimen had some sort of gigantism disorder. Might explain
why it appears the bones were continuing to grow even at that massive size,
and why it became stuck.

~~~
bduerst
Sounds a little like the modern day hummingbird, which is continuously hours
away from starvation.

Maybe this species continuously grows, and that conditions were just right for
this one specimen to keep going past the mean age.

~~~
Double_Cast
> _Maybe this species continuously grows_

Sounds a little like Bean, from the Ender's Shadow series. A mutation caused
him to grow indefinitely. The researchers may have missed a nominative
opportunity here.

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maaku
That's not an uncommon condition. It's happened in humans before, for example.

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sosuke
Just as cool, the full name Dreadnoughtus schrani is partially named after the
technology entrepreneur who helped finance the research Adam Schran. I've been
looking him up, but wow that is cool to have a Dinosaur named after you!
[http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/pe...](http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=51447892&privcapId=8237024)

~~~
michaelwilson
Almost as cool as naming one after your Dad:

[http://www.topdino.com/tanyindex.html](http://www.topdino.com/tanyindex.html)

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mkempe
65 tons -- for those who prefer measurement standards that even the Washington
Post uses.

~~~
cubicle67
which I thought was odd when I read the arstechnica article and saw the chart
which showed the beast at ~59,000kg, or 59 tons, but then I remembered that
our tons (tonnes) are 1000kg and the US ones are about 907kg

~~~
Tloewald
Luckily the imperial system has at least two different kinds of tons to help
people with their intuition.

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b_emery
Not mentioned in the article, but you'd think an animal like this would need
to be semi-immersed, such that the water would support much of its weight. A
blue whale is about 170 tons for example.

~~~
madaxe_again
Yup - I think you've hit the nail on the head here - these guys probably spent
most of their time up to their shoulders in water - keeps predators away,
supports a big chunk of their mass, eliminates the "fall over and you're dead"
problem - which would be something of an evolutionary disadvantage if they
were purely terrestrial, and would probably preclude their very existence were
this the case.

Also - it happily explains how it ended up in quicksand, at the bottom of a
lake or what have you.

Edit: further to this, this is also supported by the huge chevrons on this
thing, as if you're a big-ass dinosaur who likes to paddle, you're going to
want to use your tail for locomotion, which mandates big muscles, which
mandates big anchors for your big muscles.

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tehaugmenter
Here's some more information about this discovery with some more pictures
[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2631309/Scientists-l...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2631309/Scientists-
largest-dinosaurs-Titanosaur-fossil.html)

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electromagnetic
I'm always curious how dinosaurs this large even got to food. Did they just
bulldoze their way through trees and use their long knecks to strip the
foliage all around themselves?

Elephants can do it at 5 tons, I'm sure at 65 tons they could knock down any
tree.

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Tloewald
Elephants eat trees.

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foldor
I'm curious how these things would have mated. You'd think with a size that
large they would have a difficult time getting into position.

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madaxe_again
Back to back, most likely - docking with cloacas and all that - unless of
course this is a female, and they've estimated the size incorrectly, as it
might have disproportionately massive legs in order to take the additional
mass of a male on her back, and may in fact be a smaller dinosaur with
abnormally stocky legs due to breeding practices.

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kazinator
If it would have been deadly for it to fall over, the problem is, how would
any given dreadnoughtus _know_ that it's never supposed to allow itself to
fall over or even lie down (at least once it has reached a certain size?)

~~~
PhasmaFelis
How do you know that you shouldn't jump off cliffs, or eat rotting meat?
Evolution makes animals instinctively avoid fatal behaviors.

~~~
kazinator
I thought about that, but could something that large have evolved in the face
of perishing _so easily_ due to its size?

Extreme example: could an organism evolve to withstand a 4000K temperature?
How would it do so, if regardless of its genetic mutations, all individuals
are vaporized?

I suspect that the hypothesis is false; 65 tons or not, the animal in fact had
a way to lie down and get up again.

And evolution could select for that: evolution to huge sizes occurs under the
condition that those individuals survive and pass on their genes who are able
to get up.

There is another possible hypothesis: maybe this particular dinosaur had an
endocrine disorder, leading to something similar to acromegaly in humans.

How do we know whether we are looking at a large type, or a large individual?

~~~
PhasmaFelis
> _I thought about that, but could something that large have evolved in the
> face of perishing so easily due to its size?_

I'm not convinced that it would be easy for it to fall. Presumably as its
ancestors grew larger, they would have evolved both physiological and
instinctual safeguards against falling. If it had a stable stance and moved
slowly, perhaps one leg at a time, it would be extremely unlikely to slip and
fall by accident. I don't think there's evidence of predators large enough to
knock it over or force it to flee recklessly. We have no idea if it engaged in
dominance fights within its own species, but other animals that do that
generally do so in ways that are unlikely to cause serious injury.

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thomasfoster96
For every famous dinosaur North America had, South America had a bigger one.

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spindritf
_It took four years to excavate the skeletons, which were shipped to
Philadelphia by container ship_

Wouldn't Chile or Argentina want those? Why are they shipped out? It seems
cumbersome and unnecessarily risky.

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sosuke
Depends on who is paying for the dig right?

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mitchty
Or has the tools to properly scan/research them. I'm sure they'll go back
afterwards unless the host country doesn't object.

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robertfw
The article confirmed that the bones will be going back.

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cellis
How big compared to an elephant or blue whale? I feel like a quick image
mashup would do this justice.

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necubi
Ars Technica has a useful chart: [http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-
content/uploads/2014/09/Screen...](http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-
content/uploads/2014/09/Screen-Shot-2014-09-04-at-12.10.37.png).

(From [http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/09/meet-dreadnoughtus-
th...](http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/09/meet-dreadnoughtus-the-65-ton-
dinosaur/))

~~~
kijin
Hmm, the WP article said that Dreadnoughtus weighed more than Boeing 737, so I
was expecting it to be at least similarly sized. Was confused for a while
because the 737 is much bigger in the chart.

Turns out the plane in the chart is the biggest version of the 737 series,
which is nearly 50% longer and heavier than the smallest version. The weight
shown in the chart (44 tonnes) is the 737-900's empty weight. When fully
loaded, it can weigh up to 85 tonnes, much heavier than the Dreadnoughtus. The
weight mentioned in the WP article (50 tonnes) is for a fully loaded 737-100,
the oldest and smallest version.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737#Specifications](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737#Specifications)

Also, Futalognkosaurus is a really wacky name for a dinosaur! It sounds like
something from the Cthulhu mythos.

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okonomiyaki3000
"Measurements of bones from its leg and arm..." "...leg and arm..."
"...arm..."

Really?

~~~
kijin
The distinction between forelegs, arms, and wings can be fairly arbitrary at
times, especially when we don't know how the animal carried itself.

Although in the case of sauropods, yeah, forelegs would be much more
appropriate. Really can't imagine that behemoth standing on its hind legs for
any length of time.

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ssantic
Stop testing my faith.

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dang
Url changed from [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/05/science/dinosaur-
dreadnoug...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/05/science/dinosaur-
dreadnoughtus-discovery.html), because the WaPo article has more of the story
and requires no incognito tab fiddling.

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roye
My mind keeps seeing DreadDONUTs. Am I alone in that?

~~~
UIZealot
Same here, I thought someone misspelled "doughnut".

