Oh no.. Just when you thought it was safe to return to the board.. More people crazy enough to think of Jurassic Park 3 as scientifically accurate show up! Gee, you think they would have learned by now.. tsk, tsk.. As if everything about Spinosaurus that can be said hasn't been said here all ready. I remember reading a post where someone mentions that Paleontologists said that Spino and Giggy can take on a T-Rex. (T-Man I think it was) Well, this can mean a lot of things.

1: They can take one on, and die horrible deaths, or..
2: Maybe they really didn't think about it much before answering. You know, paleontologists (except maybe Horner..) don't sit around all day like we do thinking if dinos that lived ages apart could kill each other in battle because one was a foot longer, or one could bite up to ten times harder. When it comes to speculative stuff like this, I seriously doubt that they pay much attention to it at all. AFter all, they have enough mysteries to try and figure out at is, without having to work on stuff that never even occured.

I think the whole Giganotosaurus thing was a better debate than Spino and Rex anyway. It's so obvious that the newcomers are fresh out of their movie theater research labs.. You know what's really ironic in all of this.. T-Rex obviously even defeated Spinosaurus in a fight that he was scripted to lose! I mean, just download the mpeg of the fight scene from one of the many JP3 fan sites, or ask me for a link. It's choppy, and not in the correct order, but man..

T-Rex was all over Spino for most of the battle, it easily out manuevered the ridiculously overweight fictional Spinosaur. It starts things off with a headbutt to Spino.. It looked like the headbutt alone would shatter Spinos ribs in reality. Spino counters by waving it's claws at T-Rex and forcing it to retreat.. Of course this was it's big mistake, because Spino now falls forward on it's forelimbs, and T-Rex seizes it by the neck. An instant kill. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. There's not an animal alive now, or in the past that could survive a T-Rex bite. Especially if the animal is swung around and dragged after the bite. That should have been game over for Spino. It's ironic that JP3 is one of the best examples of how easily a T-Rex could outmanuever and destroy predators that were larger than it.

It's also quite ironic that, of all their dinos, the T-Rex is amongst the only one that isn't overly exxagerrated, or altered much. We have shrunk Dilophosaurs with frills and poison spit, giant sized Velociraptors and Spinosaurs, Baby Stegosaurs the size of ponies.. I won't even get into their ideas on flying reptiles. In the files section, Honkie Tong has posted a nice image compairing sizes. But Honkie, is that the Spinosaur size with the fabled eight foot skull? I would appreciate another chart if it were made to include the 8 foot skulled Spinosaur. It would better illustrate the fragile design of Spinosaurus.
from Usen, age 20, ?, ?, USA; August 15, 2001

This is essentially a chemistry problem.
The Death Star: Tends to be destroyed
John McClane: Tends to destroy things

Sort of like Drew Barrymore versus the Hindenburg, when you take a look at it.
from -Marc M., age ?, ?, ?, ?; August 15, 2001

Ok, first of all, i would like to thank MaxR, Honkie Tong, Leonard, Chandler and some other nameless people for some of the ONLY intelligent conversations. I wish some of you people could just stop talking about "Who would Win? T-rex VS. _________" it gets really old. But, as long as the subject is being brought up, i must voice my opinion. Personally, i think that T-rex would win against pretty much anything you could put it up against, and i have some things to back myself up. (But before i do so i must thank all intelligent people on this sight, i got a lot of this info from you.) T-rex had the strongest bighting power of any large carnivore, in my opinion, that would give it an advantage in pretty much any situation. It also had extremely good eye sight, and though i do not find that in a close battle this would make much of a difference, it might be a determining factor. Also, it is one of the the most gracile animals. And again, taken alone, this might not be really important. in a close battle, it can make a big difference. But, as i stated before all of this is moot, because most of these dino's lived at oposite ends of the earth, at totaly different times! And not only that, but they are dead! They have been for millions upon millions of years, so can we please just move on? I believe that MaxR had the right idea, actually brining up a discusion that has to do with possible relations between dinosaurs. I know that it would be really cool if dino's did exhist now, but they don't, so it doesn't matter who wins in a fight. I am not a scientist, as is clear by some of my spelling, and possibly some of my facts. I am not trying to offend anybody by writing this, i'm just asking, can we please move past the whole fight thing? I know that there are very many EXTREMELY informed people who are speaking here, and i think that they entire fight topic is a waste of your time.
from Mia, age 13, Coldwater, Michigan, USA; August 15, 2001

Stegosaurus,I Will Love You Forever No Matter What The T.Rex Fans Say.T.Rex Fans,You`ll Give Up Someday!HA HA HA HA!
from euoplacephulas, age 8, Alta, CA, USA; August 15, 2001

NO DINO COULD BEAT T-REX NONE HE IS THE BOMB BUT TROODONTIDS COULD PROBABLY BEAT SPINO
from ?, age ?, ?, ?, ?; August 15, 2001

"Good hearing actually won't count count for much in hunting either. "

I have some insight into this matter that might chnge your mind:

Tyrannosaurus had extremely well developed ears (from the examination of Sue, who had wonderfully preserved inner ears) that are capable of detecting frequencies of sound much lower than what most other dinosaurs are capable of hearing. Tyrannosaurus had one of the best ears in the mezonic. If you're wondering how this helps in predation, being able to detect extremely low frequencies is extremely useful in finding your prey as low frequencies travel the furthest and are extremely useful in decting your prey from a distance. Even modern predators like lions show exceptional hearing, leopards, being night hunters, have extremely good ears too. Another predatory adaptation we have to note is that Tyrannosaurus' had directional hearing, meaning that he could not only hear his prey a distance off, he could also tell from which direction it was. But I personally believe that he would first be tipped off by sent. A good sense of hearing is quite useful to an animal in terms of hunting. We poor humans are quite limited in our hearing, that's why we can't "see" how good hearing can help.

I'm not entirely certain animals with good noses must have been scavengers. After all, sharks are the owner of an amazing nose, and I don't find myself comforting myself that I'm safe when I'm bleeding in water surrounded with Tiger Sharks just because they had a great nose and must have been scavengers!
from Honkie Tong, age 17, ?, ?, ?; August 15, 2001

"Can you please A. this"What is the smallest and biggest CARNAVOR?""

The biggest known carnivorous dinosaur is an unnamed carcharodontosaurine related to _Giganotosaurus_ (but it is only slightly larger than _Giganotosaurus_, _Carcharodontosaurus_, and _Tyrannosaurus_). There is no official description on it yet, but will probably turn out to be just under 15 meters. The smallest known carnivorous dinosaur is _Microraptor_, at only 40-50 centimeters (assuming the holotype of this dinosaur is fully grown, which seems very possible).
from Chandler, age ?, ?, ?, ?; August 15, 2001

Can you please A. this"What is the smallest and biggest CARNAVOR?"
from Jamie, age 10, Lowry City, MO, U.S.A.; August 15, 2001

"Carcharodontosaurus and Giganotosaurus both had shark teeth so if the teeth hit bone they would snap,"

If they had shark teeth, then I would think that they would feed like sharks, shaking their heads left and right, ripping off large pieces of flesh, as opposed to T.rex, who pulverized the entire bite area, THEN ripping off the the huge chunks of meat.

"(sorry, but carrion dosen't make noise, so it's not an adaptation we'll see if T.rex was mainly scavenging), extremely good eyesight and gracile legs"

Good hearing actually won't count count for much in hunting either. Smelling and eyesight is the issue, here. Smelling would help better in scavanging than hunting. Carrion can give off a very strong and distinct smell.
from Jason, age 13, Dayton, Ohio, USA; August 15, 2001

I LOVE DINOS THEY ROCK MY WORLDDDDDDDDDDD!!!

THIS IS ONE OF MY WEB SITES,I GO TO THIS SITE EVERY DAY,

GO ZOOMDINOSAURS.COM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
from NILS, age 10, CHICO, CA, USA; August 15, 2001

THIS GO'S TO T.REX RULES,

MOST DINOSAURS ARE SMARTER THEN T.REX LIKE TROODON.AND I'M NOT STUPID
BECUASE I AM SCIENTIST AND I STUDY HARD ALSO THE BOOKS SAY T.REX IS NOT THE SMARTEST DINOSAUR.
from nils, age 10, chico, CA, usa; August 15, 2001

All dinos beside T.Rex are dumb. T.Rex will always be the best no matter what scientists say. We know better. Scientisits are dumb.
from TREX RULES, age ?, ?, ?, ?; August 15, 2001

TO HHH aged 15
Okay you're right fellow! It was a fault. But if the raptor and T-rex never met then why do you discuss about a meaningless question?
You can't say too much things as a fact about animals died 65 million years ago! Even about their behaviour! And even about who would have won! I guess paleontology is not about that. It's not JP.
from Marty, age ?, Budapest, Pest, Hungary; August 15, 2001

"Honkie, what kind of dinosaur is Gallus domesticus? How come I have never heard of it? And I agree Rex can take out the Death Star, no matter what Bill says."

_Gallus domesticus_ is a chicken, which is a dinosaur (a non-avian one though, so not usually thought of when you think of dinosaurs).
from Chandler, age ?, ?, ?, ?; August 15, 2001

SPINEOSAURS CAN NOT KILL T.REX BECUASE HE HAD A WEAK JAW. AND AM A NOT T.REX I JUST TELL THE TRUTH.
from NILS, age 10, CHICO, CA, USA; August 15, 2001

"I don't think that "Dinosaur" was set in the very late Cretaceous. Just because there is an asteroid impact doesn't mean it is the KT one (also because many dinosaurs in the movie survived it...hmm...)."

I was just thinking that because throughout the whole movie the dinosaurs were trying to find someplace to live that had vegetation and water. And when Aladar joined the heard the only other dinosaurs I saw were the raptors and the Carnotorus. And so the earth seemed pretty lonely, they passed up some dinosaur remains, and the raptors and Carnotoruses didn't give up so easily so that should say food is scarce. But that is just what I think.
from Ryan, age 13, Orlando, Florida, USA; August 15, 2001

even though the T-rex is super-intelligent and can kick Darth Vader's @$$, there are a few things that stand in T-rex's way. 1:He may not be able to fit into some of the tunnels in the Death Star, meaning that eventually he'll get stuck and the storm troopers will fry him, no matter how bad their aim is. 2:The Death Star is like a huge maze of tunnels, and T-rex might get lost. 3:The Death Star's main computer will probably be too complex for the T-rex, so he might not be able to hook up a sattelite dish or anything to pick up TV channels, much less trigger it to explode.

Anyway, one of those things will probably happen to the T-rex, so earth will blow up.
from ?, age ?, ?, ?, ?; August 15, 2001

Hey guys, I am sure paleontologists know more about dinosaurs than you guys. They say spinosaurus or a giganotosaurus could take on a t-rex. Many of the world's largest carnivores bears, sharks, and crocodiles feed on fish, but fish isn't their only diet.Every once in a while they kill a large land or sea animal about their size. An animal couldn't reach 10 ft. long from fish.
from T-man, age 17, ?, ?, ?; August 15, 2001

Honkie, what kind of dinosaur is Gallus domesticus? How come I have never heard of it? And I agree Rex can take out the Death Star, no matter what Bill says.
from Eoj, age 9, ?, ?, ?; August 15, 2001

Hi my name is Andrew and I just discoverd this website about peoples favorite dinosaurs and so far what I have read about is people have a big voting contest tyrannosaurus/spinosaurus to see which dinosaur is more powerful. Well I heard that these two dinosaurs had a match in JURASSIC PARK 3 and the spinosaurus won. however this was just a movie and movies are scripted. Since I already know about tyrannosaurus I had no idea what a spinosaurus was so I read about it in the CHOOSE YOUR FAVROITE DINOSAUR section so I found spinosaurus and read about it. the description of the spinosaurus was that it was a huge meat-eater with the scales that look like a dimentrodon. so it was like spinosaurus is a tyrannosaurus with dimentrodon scales. For a final solution I cannot just say that tyrannosaurus is the best becasue i need to read about spinosaurus a little more so that I could decide which meat-eater is the champion. However I did read about another dinosaur that is simliar to T-rex it was the same thing as tyrannosaurus but it was much bigger perhaps an early ancestor of the tyrannosaurus and if it was the prehistoric tyrannosaurus against spinosaurus then spinosaurus would be just fresh kentucky fried chicken with corn, mash potatoes with gravy on them it would be dinner time.

Ok here is the match.

The special referee is the Utahraptor he stands right in the middle of the beautiful beach the audience watching the match are herds of stegosaurus, brontosaurus, triceratops, and other species of plant-eaters.

"Ladies and Gentleman this is the featured match of the dinosaur ege scheduled for one-fall a special no holds barred a fight to the finish for the heavyweight champion of the meat-eaters. introducing first standing 45 feet tall weighing 8 tons SPINOSAURUS.

Spinosaurus comes out of the right side of the forest, roaring out in excitement the audience cheers BOOOOOOOOO

"And his opponent standing 52 feet tall weighing 11 tons the king of the dinosaurs TYRANNOSAURUS REX the audience cheers YAAAAAHHHHHAAHH

the two dinosaurs stare at each other with anger the bell rings the two meat-eaters circle each other still staring at each other. Spinosaurus makes the first move and swipes at tyrannosaurus with it's massive tail but the t-rex dodges it and charges at spinosaurus but the t-rex like meat-eater trips the t-rex with it's left foot. the t-rex falls to the ground chin first to the ground. spinosaurus approaches and using it's massive jaws and clamps it's jaws and begins sinking it'teeth into the upper back of t-rex the feels a little bit of pain and then it begins feeling more pain. The t-rex turns sideways on it's back and bites at spinosaurus right leg sinking it's teeth into the flesh spinosaurus howls in pain. the t-rex like meat-eater kicks the t-rex in the face with it's left leg. the t-rex uses it's tail to trip spinosaurus off balance. the t-rex releases it's grip and rises up quickly. both t-rex and spino are now three feet in the water. the t-rex charges spino and slashes across the chest and a little bit of blood begins to pour out. spino uses both feet and kicks t-rex out into a little bit of deeper water. t-rex falls back but gets up quickly as spino charges t-rex flips spino over as the t-rex charges out in the distance something gigantic is approaching the t-rex spots it and the strange object heads toward the spinosaurus t-rex kind of ignores it and approaches spinosaurus as spinosaurus growls viciously at t-rex

A GIANT GATOR comes out of the water and grabs a hold of spinosaurus sinking it's huge foot-length teeth into the body of it's helpless victim the giant gator spins it' body around to tear apart the flesh of spinosaurus blood pours out of the body. the giant gator throws the now expired spinosaurus out into very deep water then charges the t-rex. the t-rex turns to run away but the giant gator grabs t-rex's legs and drags him into the water the t-rext struggles to get free from the new predator. the gator flips the t-rex over out into the deep water with the dead spinosaurus the t-rex cannot swim and now both the t-rex and spino are dead the giant gator begins feeding off the bodies of the two dead meaters. then out of nowhere a huge megalodon comes out from the dark depths and also begins feeding on the dead bodies of the t-rex and spino they tear away chunks of meat. but the giant gator all of a sudden moves away because it could see the the utahraptor in the water. the giant gator grabs the utahraptor and crushing it in it's huge jaws blood begins pouring out. the audience on the beach are to terrified that they scramble in different directions. THE END
from ANDREW, age 17, ?, USA, ?; August 15, 2001

Y r u Spino fans bothering so much about size? I mean meaness does matter, pretend Rex is Mike Tyson and the Spino is just an ordinary guy who is slightly bigger Rex would beat Spino...
from Eoj, age 9, Midland, MI, USA; August 15, 2001

spinosaurus is only slightly bigger than T.rex, and it was a fish eater.
Carcharodontosaurus and Giganotosaurus both had shark teeth so if the teeth hit bone they would snap, even know they are both bigger than T.Rex, so size isn't every thing. But T.Rex had good eye sight couldgo to 20-30mph and had bone crushing teeth + the fact it had a bigger brain.
from adam m, age 12, peterborough, cambridgeshire, England; August 15, 2001

To HHH, I don't see how T.rex can be a obligary scavenger, given we have more than 5 seperate pieces of evidence indicating active predation. Besides, there's no such thing as a 100 percent large, non-flying terrestrial carnivore for the simple reason the it's not profitable enough to prusue with an selective advantage.

And of course, there are other adaptations in Tyrannosaurids that seem to point towards it being a hunter. Exceptionally well-developed brain, exceptional directional hearing (sorry, but carrion dosen't make noise, so it's not an adaptation we'll see if T.rex was mainly scavenging), extremely good eyesight and gracile legs and cursorial adaptations (Forget what Horner said about T.rex having legs not built for speed, paleontologists at the forefront of animal motion mechnics will tell you otherwise). If you ask me, T.rex reeks of being NOT a obgliate scavenger. Though I'll be surprised if he didn't scavenge. Besides, I wonder how much does Horner really know about T.rex anyway? He is, after all an expert on hardosaurs, not Tyrannosaurids, and when he first published his theory on T.rex being a scavenger, he actually made a few glaring mistakes on T.rex anatomy (such as his claims of weak teeth and weak bites, clumsly legs...) My point is, if you are going to take your Tyrannosaurid info mainly from him, your knowledge about T.rex will be anything but The Complete T.rex (tm.)...
from Leonard, age 14, ?, ?, ?; August 15, 2001

T.rex has taken out Darth Vader. Nobody, with or without the force, has been able to do that, much less with such style (Ho!ho!ho! I have a light saber?). What is a Death Star to T.rex after this monumental feat. Can you imagine the fear in the Imperial Forces after they learn of the powerful being who has taken down their Sith Lord. They won't even be able to find the fire button as they will be too busy shaking in their boots! Go T.rex Go!!
from Leonard, age 14, ?, ?, ?; August 15, 2001

HAHAHA! You T.Rex fans may think you have won, but we will contuine to argue for Spinosaurus and Giganotosaurus even though we are obviously wrong as are about as scientifically correct as a pig that flies! Ha ha ha ha ha!
from Gigano/Spino fan, age ?, ?, ?, ?; August 15, 2001

"I love T.Rex! He is the coolest! I will always argue that he is the best even when I am obviously wrong. All other dinos are stupid, T.Rex is the bestest!"

People who could have posted this post:

Sean
Shane
Jason
And anti-rexers

Ps: Nice attempt at character assasination, but you didn't quite cut it. Do try harder.
from ?, age ?, ?, ?, ?; August 15, 2001

Hey, I just posted a picture of the feathered dinosaur Gallus domesticus, check it out!
from Honkie Tong, age 17, ?, ?, ?; August 15, 2001

Y r u people arguing so much about rex VS Spino etc, I mean size does matter,Pretend Rex is a 1rst grader and Spino is a 4orth grader
spino would beat rex
from Joe, age 9, Midland, MI, USA; August 15, 2001

Gulie, what you say is junk. Spinosaurus had a fairly weak jaw for predators. You are obviously basing this on size. T. Rex's bone-crushing teeth are very good for killing prey in one or two good bites. You have to know another thing. Hyeanas wern't completly scavengers. I've seen documentaries of hyeanas stalking flamingoes. There are NO terrestrial scavengers because you'd need to fly to get to the prey quickly. T. Rex's super nose was used to find prey yet stay out of sight.
from Samuel C., age ?, ?, ?, ?; August 15, 2001

THE ULTIMATE DINOFIGHT!

The Setting

The admiral has hastily directed his men to apprehend the vigilante wreaking havoc upon his brand new battlestation. "We must capture this renegade before he causes any more trouble on the Death Star. Our first target, Earth, will be in range in 24 hours. He must be stopped by then. If we fail, the Emperor will come here and punish us personally."

Behind them they hear a set of blast doors open. The admiral and his legion of storm troopers turn and see a horrifying sight. There sits Darth Vader, slumped over dead in a chair. He has had a few gigantic chunks bitten out of him, and something is written in blood on Darth Vader's black cape. As they unfurl it, the admiral reads the message:
"Ho Ho Ho. Now I have a light saber!"

So, with Darth Vader out of the picture, and the Emperor "far, far away" (thus no Force to speak of), can the super intelligent Tyrannosaurus rex stop the Death Star before it reaches Earth?

Tyrannosaurus rex
vs.
Death Star
----------------------------------------
The Commentary

BILL: I like the T.rex, but I'll have to go with the Death Star on this one. T.rex may be good, but he's way outta his league here. T.rex vs. 12 raptors, he'll win. T.rex vs. Giganotosaurus, no problem too. T.rex vs. Allosaurus, no fight. But T.rex vs. the empire's war machine?? That's a total mismatch! And not to mention T.rex is facing Stormtroopers (tm), the Empire's elite shock troops. These guys are totting laser rifles and all kinds of advanced weaponry that will have on trouble taking out an animal like T.rex, no matter how large and mean he can be. Not to mention the Stormtroopers are wearing armor, which will greatly limit the amount of damage that T.rex can do with his bite. Given how advanced their technology is I'll not be surprised if T.rex can't bite through at all. True, T.rex has gotten out of some pretty tight jams, but he has never come close to anything like this before. The Death Star is just too big for one dino to take on without special abilities (like the force). Honestly, Tyrannosaurus is just a dinosaur. All he knows is dino-steak, donuts, and killing other dinos. He has no clue about how tractor beams and reactor cores work. As anyone who has seen Star Wars knows, the only way to stop the Death Star is to take out the reactor. Contrary to what you say, John couldn't figure this out on his own, and even if he did there's nothing he could do about it. I don't recall any spare proton torpedoes lying around.

Result: Earth destroyed, T.rex spends the rest of his days hiding from Stormtroopers in the garbage compactor until he kills the garbage creature, gets caught and gets sold into fighting Rancors for entertainment, where he completely rocks and drives the species extinct. He's way otta his league here!

HONKIE: Am I hearing you correctly? How can the producer of Dinowarz and one of the biggest rex fans I know say this? I tell you this match is a no-brainer for T.rex will easily destroy the Death Star and save the day.

Firstly your point on the Stormtroopers being the Empire's elite shock troopers armed with the best technology ever is entirely MOOT (tm). Anybody who has watched Star Wars can tell that Stormtroopers are completely USELESS! For goodness sakes, they can hit the broad side of a barn, even if they were standing on it! In fact, they are incapable of hitting the Good Guys (tm) at all, unless it's a critical plot juncture, and even so, it'll be on some non-fatal part of the body. T.rex is the good guy in this case, and thus he'll will all the more unlikely get hit. Not to mention it has been an established fact that Tyrannosaurus is capable of moving extremely rapidly and agilely, it'll be considered extremely lucky if they even land a shot anywhere close to T.rex. And I doubt the laser rifles in the hands of the Stormtroopers will actually help them, for if you look at Jurassic Park, if you are not one of the main characters and you hold a gun, you die! (Observe the TWL hunters, Eddie Carr, JP3 hired guns…) The Stormtroopers will be HELPING T.rex to kill them, if anything.

And about the Stormtrooper armor, it's virtually useless! They can't even take a single laser hit without being breached. If you are still not convinced, in the Battle of Endor, there is a scene where this stone-tipped arrow actually penetrated the Stormtrooper armor. Given their supposedly high-tech armor's track record, T.rex is not going to have a problem with crushing these useless cannon fodder in his jaws. Speaking of the Battle of Endor, the supposedly elite of the Empire was defeated by a bunch of Fuzzy Teddy Bears (tm) welding sticks and primitive weaponry, despite having all those "high tech" AT-ST walkers, laser rifles and such. It's a proven scientific fact from the three movies that Stormtroopers are not good for anything else except dying by the masses and taking ridiculous losses. They are complete buffoons and will do little but get off their laser-bursts-that-will-miss in the two-seconds-of-screen-time-before-they-die. They're not the elite shock troops you've made them out to be, any Star Wars fans can point that out.

With Vader out of the way, T.rex will have no trouble with the Stormtroopers (In fact if he can finish Vader, nothing in the Empire can stop him now). Well, the Admiral and the other officers will be too busy planning the attack on Earth to meddle with the intruder personally, so they will just send Stormtroopers. Legion after legion of DUMBA$$ Stormtroopers! T.rex successfully took out highly trained, professional dinosaur hunters. I think he can handle the pansies in white.

T.rex, a master of diversion AND hide-n-go-seek (tm) will be setting off explosions all over the death star, blowing out a computer panel here, flaming out some air ducts there. No one will have a clue what's going on...except for Mr. T.rex. The way I see it, T.rex runs around for about 20 hours, kills about 37,000 storm troopers, suffers injuries which, if inflicted on mere mortals, would require 4500 stitches, and still gets enough free time to figure out how the Death Star works (he's super intelligent in this case anyway), all with the help of a black-wearing chaos theorist (hint hint) back on Earth whom he is communicating with on a souped-up ham radio. After 20 hours, T.rex figures out the same chain reaction Achilles' Heel the Jedis knew about. After a few hours work, he sets it off just as the Death Star is preparing to fire. T.rex, of course, barely escapes the explosion in a hijacked Imperial Shuttle. And the Earth is saved by the Mighty T.rex (TM.) again.

BILL: Very good… but you are not going to win this one. Ok, so the Stormtroopers are virtually useless and they can't do anything but to miss and hit the occasional unimportant character. In this case even a super intelligent T.rex on the level of human intelligence (Like my Dinowarz T.rexes) who has taken out Vader will not be able to stop the Empire. Firstly, T.rex is way out of his turf here, he's a prehistoric animal and being on modern earth is already strange enough to him. But on the high-tech death star? He's going to be way confused and unable to fight as effectively, despite all his enhanced intelligence.

If this was not bad enough, it's also important to note that all of T.rexes' coolness will be lost upon the Death Star inhabitants. He can shout "Yippekaiyay" all he wants, but it won't make a lick of difference. Normally this would alert his enemies to how powerful and cool (even approaching Mentos (TM.) level coolness) he was, and make them cower in fear, and force them into doing something stupid. However, the Empire has no idea what "Yippekaiyay" is, and its' effect will be lost. T.rexes' loses one of his most powerful abilities, thus ensuring his quick demise. I doubt he'll even make it to the control room.

No change here, the Empire in a landslide.

HONKIE: Poor, naive Bill. You set a trap for yourself. If you have been looking around, you'll notice that some people have already covered why T.rex will never lose his Coolness Advantage Ability (tm) here, I'll just quote them using the necessary changes:
"You claim that the Death Star inhabitants wouldn't know how cool T.rex was because they wouldn't know what "Yippekaiyay" meant. Well, something tells me those Germans didn't know what it meant either (perhaps it was the confused look on Hans Gruber's face the first time he heard it). But the Germans still knew how cool he was. And the Empire will as well. How does this work? Because T.rex actually SURPASSES Mentos (tm) level coolness and also Pua Chu Kang (tm) level bengness. Thus, nothing can stop him, not bad waiters, not rude drivers, not lost sporting equipment, not escalators, not a massive battle station called the Death Star. (DOO-WAH! (tm)"

And your other arguments are irrelevant (like you expected me to say anything else). Firstly, your home turf point is MOOT (tm). T.rex will have no problems adapting to the Death Star. Did you see how the T.rex in The Lost World behaved when he was in San Diego? Was he confused? Was he so blur about the new urban surroundings that he couldn't do any damage? NO! He was on one of his Rampages (tm), doing a heck load of damage to the city, he wasn't confused, and he wasn't undecided about what to do. And that's just the Jurassic Park's cheesy version of T.rex, the version who could not detect movement and such. The real T.rex is much meaner, smarter and with a super intelligent T.rex who JUST TOOK OUT VADER, adapting to the death star is No Problemo Batman (tm) Who says T.rex needs proton torpedoes? That's what the Jedis used, but I'm sure it isn't the only way to set off that chain reaction, especially from the inside. Here's the way I see it: T.rex thinks of the perfect diversion. He'll rig the Death Star to tune into our satellite network and provide the entire Death Star with 10,000 channels of mindless wrestling, monster truck madness and MTV. Within minutes, the Death Star is on-line. And before you know it, half the crew is debating over who would win between a Rottweiler and a Rottweiler's weight in Chihuahuas (whatever those are) while the other half is on usenet explaining to Trekkie fans why they'd kick The Borg's sorry butt. Thus, with free reign, T.rex easily discovers the ship's layout, puts together a MacGuyver-esque (tm) time-delay explosive, and is already halfway home as the Death Star meets its maker.

BILL: First of all, let me note that it is impossible to surpass Mentos (tm) level coolness, as that is by definition the highest level of coolness possible. The same is with Pua Chu Kang (tm) level bengness. It's like going faster than the speed of light -- it's an absolute barrier that can't be overcome. Frankly Honkie, it's sad when you have to violate the laws of physics in order to prove your point. Second, yet again you overestimate T.rexes' intelligence. Sure, he can kick butt, and has good gut instincts (like any Tyrannosaur), but that's not going to be enough. Note that he is outnumbered by 1 to 37,000.

One final nail in T.rexes' coffin is the "politically correct PG-13" factor. He simply cannot do all his deadly and violent moves without Spielberg complaining "That's too rough" or "You're too violent, think of the effect on the kids!" or that he's breaking some rule or other. And this will inhibit him from doing stuff in his no-nonsense kick-butt way. With the presence of another good-guy director for him to piss-off, his heart just won't be in the work. Without the motivation, it's an easy victory for the Empire.

HONKIE: That was a nice try in trying to make a lame argument, but you should try harder. Sadly Bill, your postulations of the Mentos (tm) level coolness and Pua Chu Kang (tm) level bengness being impossible to cross just like going faster than the speed of light are overly simplistic and in turn disregard basic laws of theoretical physics. The equation for Mentos coolness and Pua Chu Kang bengness are not like E=MC squared, but rather, a Boolean subtract barrier function. This barrier is based on a chronological initial LaGrangian reference frame, combined with an Nth order hierarchical set intersection theory lookup equation fed through a multidirective conditional comparator function. This barrier is impossible to pass unless you are an extremely large Tyrannosaurid who is extremely cool and mean…which hey! T.rex is. Because of the unique Boolean phase space mass and shape of the conditional input, T.rex is able to breach the barrier. As I said, he's no ordinary animal.

Now Bill, now that I have educated you on the physics of Mentos (tm) level coolness and Pua Chu Kang (tm) level bengness, I shall now shoot down more of your points. Firstly, as this is obviously taking place in a Star Wars vs. Real Earth scenario, the director here will be Lucas, not Spielberg! Even then, Lucas has no jurisdiction over T.rex as the T.rex here is not from his ILM studio, but it's a Real Dinosaur (tm) who is not inhibited like the JP T.rexes to PG-13 level violence. He'll kick some serious butt without worrying about the violence level and will make short work of the empire. Did I also mention he was also super intelligent in this scenario? Bye! Bye! Death Star!

---------------------------------------------------------

Who will win? You decide!
from Billy Macdraw and Honkie Tong, age 19/17, ....., ....., .....; August 15, 2001

"Anyone here ever see a 15 ft croc grab a 2 ton water buffalo by it's neck and flip it around like it was a rag doll? "

No, because water buffalos don't weight 2 tons(half the weight of a full grown elephant and the size of a rhino!!!????)... they weight about 400 kilos. And a 15 ft croc would weight about a ton, more than your typical water buffalos... hmm...somebody is bluffing here...

"If T.Rex was so unfortunate to have been around as the same time as Spino, he would have been a nice little meal for Spino, I can see it now, the unknowing T.Rex walks up to the river bank to get a drink to water..... SNAP!!!"

Sadly, you have once again made the common and sad mistake of equating Spinosaurus with crocs. I'm sad to inform you that Spinosaurus was nowhere near as powerful or as deadly as a 15-foot croc underwater. Here, I'll show you why:

1)Crocs are extremely different from Spinosaurus, they are immenensly heavier, more heavier built and are mainly ambush-hunters. They can lie in wait or creep up in shallow water to ambush prey. Sadly, Spinosaurus was by compairism, rather tall, not to mention bipedial. It certainly could not hide itself underwater in the shallow water near the riverbank! And with a seven-foot sail sticking out of his back, I seriously think he'll give more warning to his prey than simply exposed nostrils and a raised periscope :). His body structure denied him from ambushing his prey like you said.

And Spinosaurus, if you had bothered to do any research on him BESIDES watch JP3, would have have had been woefully equipped with the wrong tools to go "SNAP!!!". Firstly, Spinosaurus, despite having a skull similar in shape to a croc, did not bite anywhere as hard. And that's a good thing. Some crocs species and gators are capable of biting down hard mainly because, like Tyrannosaurus they had extremely deeply rooted teeth and extremly well developed muscles at the rear of their jaws and temporo mandibular joint and very robustly built-skulls to resist the stresses of biting down so hard. Spinosaurus and Spinosaurs in general have VERY (and I do mean very) lightly built skulls, realtively lightly built muscles to work the jaw and shallowly rooted teeth (1/3 root, 2/3 crown) that in Spinosaurus' case, was poitioned off normal (pointing forward) in aid in capturing fish. Spinosaurus lacked the adaptations to go "SNAP!!!", which he could not, and if he tried anyway, he'll end up with alot of missing teeth and a broken jaw for all his trouble. Besides, his lightly and not-powerfully muscled neck disalowed him from really tossing and throwing prey. You really should go look into the morphlogy of the animals before making compairisms, for you'll ultimately make dumb ones and make yourself look very stupid indeed.
from Honkie Tong, age 17, ?, ?, ?; August 15, 2001

"Very idiotic! Everyone knows that hyenas do most of the hunting! Lions are just bigass "overhyped" scavengers that has a "cool" reputation because they look good.
Every expert will tell you that it's the hyenas that do most of the hunting. "

Actually, it really depends on the area of africa you are in. In some areas, the lions mainly hunt while the heyenas scavenge, in other areas, the heynas mainly hunt while the lions scavenge. As scientists tend to study animals in a certain area only, we tend to get greatly varying and conflicting reports, but it's certainly obvious from the morphlogy of both animals that they were very capable hunters. Of course, the morphlogy of the Spinosaurs does tell us that they are not really adapted for hunting the kinds of prey we are used to seeing Allosaurids or Tyrannosauirds take down. But if you think this dino debate is the mother of all debates, wait till you see the next one that is coming up.
from Honkie Tong, age 17, ?, ?, ?; August 15, 2001

I AM CURRENTLY A PELEOSCIENTIST AND STUDYS DO SHOW THAT TYRANNOSAUR COULD BEAT GIGANTASURS AND SPINOSAURS CONSIDERING THE FACT THAT T-REX HAD A MORE MASSIVE JAW STRUCTURE. AND WHO MADE UP THE (*&^ ^&*( ABOUT T-REX BEING A SCAVENGER NO ANIMAL WITH SIX"TEETH SCAVENGE.BUT ABOUT 2MILLION YEARS SEPERATED T-REX GIGANTOSAUR AND SPINOSAUR AND DONT TAKE THINGS YOU HEAR FROM JURASSIC PARK AND TURN THEM INTO FACTS BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT FACTS I WILL TELL YOU 3 REAL DINO FACTS RIGHT NOW T-REX VISION IS NOT BASED ON MOVEMENT DILOPHOSAURUS DOES NOT SPIT AND NO BIO-ENGINEER HAS EVER BEEN ABLE TO CRACK THE DNA OF ANY DINO.
from JOHN B., age 42, PHEINOX, ARIZONA, U.S.A.; August 14, 2001

I love T.Rex! He is the coolest! I will always argue that he is the best even when I am obviously wrong. All other dinos are stupid, T.Rex is the bestest!
from T.Rex Fan, age ?, ?, ?, ?; August 14, 2001

I THINK THAT THE T-REX WOULD BEAT THE SPINOSAURUS AND THE GIGANTOSAURUS BECAUSE THE T-REX WAS THE LAST OF THE GIANT CARNIVORS IT WAS THE LAST ONE MEANING IT WAS OBVIOUSLY THE SMARTEST AND GREATEST EQUIPPED SEE SPINOSAURUS AND GIGANTOSAURUS DIDNT MAKE IT TO THE END OF THE CRETACIOUS PERIOD T-REX DID SO THINK ABOUT THE.
from MIKE F., age 15, ???????????, ?????????/, U.S.A.; August 14, 2001

Another staement here from HHH trying to dethrone our mighty T-Rex.

T-Rex had a good nose? Sure he can use it for hunting too, you %^&*())!

Everyone knows that T-Rex is the better predator. Faster, more agile, stronger jaw bite, more intelligent. Just purely beats the crap out of Gigano.

And the best defense that Gigano can come up is.......Gigano is bigger (longer by 2 feet than Sue. Heavier by a ton. Slower by at least 5 mph)! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! It scares me. It really does!

And those Gigano teeth, it can punture to death a sauropod after biting it for the nth time. While T-Rex can just take one bite (if he lived with a sauropod) and get a big chunk and be happy!
from Guile, age 19, Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines; August 14, 2001

"This Spino VS Giggy VS T.Rex stuff is getting crazy. We all know, even you die-hard T.Rex acolytes know this deep down, that T.Rex was nothing but an overgown scavenger. I big turkey buzzard. He even had turkey buzzard-like olfactory bulbs. Yes, he had a very stong bite force- JUST LIKE A HYENA. This was used to crush bone, like the hyena. The hyena has a more powerful bite than a lion, but it is much more of a scavenger as scavengers like T.Rex and hyenas make use of all the carrion they find, including the bones. Giggy and Spino had teeth for slicing meat. T.Rex had rounded teeth for crushing bone. This is all very well know and documented. T.Rex crazies just can't accept the facts. T.Rex was a scavenger... get over it. Just b/c he was a scavenger doesn't somehow make it "less cool". Vultures, buzzards and hyenas are all cool in their own way. But if you're into true predators, Giggy or Spino should be your dino. And I wish T.Rex fans would stop making up stuff about these two dinos to make the T.Rex look better. Both would take T.Rex in a fight due to their superior (i.e. sharper, more deadly, meat slicing) teeth and superior size. Yes, Giggy was relativly lightly built, this indicates fleet-footedness (predator-like). Yes, Spino ate fish. So what. So do crocs, gators and the Great White Shark. These animals also predate on other anmimals much larger than temselves, as did Spino. Anyone here ever see a 15 ft croc grab a 2 ton water buffalo by it's neck and flip it around like it was a rag doll? If T.Rex was so unfortunate to have been around as the same time as Spino, he would have been a nice little meal for Spino, I can see it now, the unknowing T.Rex walks up to the river bank to get a drink to water..... SNAP!!!"

Very idiotic! Everyone knows that hyenas do most of the hunting! Lions are just bigass "overhyped" scavengers that has a "cool" reputation because they look good.
Every expert will tell you that it's the hyenas that do most of the hunting.

LOL!
from Guile, age 19, Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines; August 14, 2001

To Marty aged 17:

You need to pay more attention buddy, Leonard clearly put the following his post:

"Now, if you intend to discard time zones and geographic barriers,"

=P
from HHH, age 15, LA, CA, US; August 14, 2001

"I agree with you Brad but the ride is mostly about fun and how Disney made the dinosaurs look real(like we think). Also if you remember the movie Dinosaur didn't the Iguanodon live in the Late Cretaceous. Maybe Disney knows something we all don't know?"

I don't think that "Dinosaur" was set in the very late Cretaceous. Just because there is an asteroid impact doesn't mean it is the KT one (also because many dinosaurs in the movie survived it...hmm...). And Disney does not know anything that we don't know, they just wanted to use _Iguanodon_ and _Carnotaurus_ for some strange reason...
from Chandler, age ?, ?, ?, ?; August 14, 2001

To Leonard aged 14
Why are you so dead sure about the behaviour of the Theropods in the late cretaceous? I belive Utahraptor was found in a middle cretacous formation some 125 million years ago so probably it never could meet T rex. You can't tell as many things you did like facts!
from Marty, age 17, Budapest, Pest, Hungary; August 14, 2001

"Also if you remember the movie Dinosaur didn't the Iguanodon live in the Late Cretaceous"

I think Dinosaur was supposed to be set in the Cretaceous, but not any particular part of the Cretaceous. I don't remember seeing a single Maastrichtian form in Dinosaur, though.
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; August 14, 2001

Proof that T.Rex hunted occasionally is pretty secure. Remember the edmontosaur with the tail wound?
from ?, age ?, ?, ?, ?; August 14, 2001

Hmm...actually, lions will steal from hyenas more than hyenas will from lions.
from ?, age ?, ?, ?, ?; August 14, 2001

This Spino VS Giggy VS T.Rex stuff is getting crazy. We all know, even you die-hard T.Rex acolytes know this deep down, that T.Rex was nothing but an overgown scavenger. I big turkey buzzard. He even had turkey buzzard-like olfactory bulbs. Yes, he had a very stong bite force- JUST LIKE A HYENA. This was used to crush bone, like the hyena. The hyena has a more powerful bite than a lion, but it is much more of a scavenger as scavengers like T.Rex and hyenas make use of all the carrion they find, including the bones. Giggy and Spino had teeth for slicing meat. T.Rex had rounded teeth for crushing bone. This is all very well know and documented. T.Rex crazies just can't accept the facts. T.Rex was a scavenger... get over it. Just b/c he was a scavenger doesn't somehow make it "less cool". Vultures, buzzards and hyenas are all cool in their own way. But if you're into true predators, Giggy or Spino should be your dino. And I wish T.Rex fans would stop making up stuff about these two dinos to make the T.Rex look better. Both would take T.Rex in a fight due to their superior (i.e. sharper, more deadly, meat slicing) teeth and superior size. Yes, Giggy was relativly lightly built, this indicates fleet-footedness (predator-like). Yes, Spino ate fish. So what. So do crocs, gators and the Great White Shark. These animals also predate on other anmimals much larger than temselves, as did Spino. Anyone here ever see a 15 ft croc grab a 2 ton water buffalo by it's neck and flip it around like it was a rag doll? If T.Rex was so unfortunate to have been around as the same time as Spino, he would have been a nice little meal for Spino, I can see it now, the unknowing T.Rex walks up to the river bank to get a drink to water..... SNAP!!!
from HHH, age 15, LA, CA, US; August 14, 2001

"That's an insanely stupid plot, because Iguanodon lived in the Early Cretaceous, not the Late Cretaceous. I can't imagine why someone wouldn't bring that up while they were designing the ride."

I agree with you Brad but the ride is mostly about fun and how Disney made the dinosaurs look real(like we think). Also if you remember the movie Dinosaur didn't the Iguanodon live in the Late Cretaceous. Maybe Disney knows something we all don't know?

"Did you see the Iguanodon?"

Actually, yes. Towards the end of the ride(like about 20-30 seconds before the "asteroid" hits the guy is screaming to get you out of their and then a tree blocks your way. But then the Iguanodon picks it up and you go foreward and down a hill as the Carnotorusleaps at you. And you make it out with the Iguanodon.
from Ryan, age 13, Orlando, Florida, USA; August 14, 2001

I think that a t rex would whip the pants out of spino.the t rex would over power a spino because it is abou 2 tons hevier.its jaws are one nise pup 3000 pounds per square inch thats 20,000 newtons plus 9inch teethwith out a dought t rex could destory a spino
from josh, age not tellin, heven, wisconsin, usa; August 14, 2001

T-Rex's prey:
1. Triceratops
2. Hadrosaurs
3. Ankylosaurs
4. Dome heads (I need confirmation on this)

Spino's prey
1. Fish
2. Sauropods (needs confirmation. And even if it's confirmed, so what?)

Giganos prey:
1. Sauropods

Then you're making comparison? One of T-Rex's favorite snacks could beat the crap out of these two! LOL!
from Guile, age 19, Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philppines; August 14, 2001

"ua no t.rex is my fave but dos enybody think a pack of 13 rapters can kill a t.rex"

There's a large problem here, firstly, the "raptors" present during the time where Tyrannosaurus lived (near the K-T), were all the small, dog-sized animals, roughly the size of Velociraptor! The larger forms had gone extinct long ago. So if an adult Tyrannosaurus ever fought any raptors, these would be it. I seriously doubt 13 dog-sized raptors could actually present even a minor threat to a 40 foot, 6.5 ton Tyrannosaurus! But the raptors could stand a fair chance against a infant Tyrannosaurus (which was about thier size). But no, I doubt 13 dog-sized raptors would make too much of an impression on a Tyrannosaurus at all, Tyrannosaurus was certainly out of its league.

Now, if you intend to discard time zones and geographic barriers, the next size class of raptors we'll pit against Tyrannosaurus would be those of Deinonychus-size, about man-sized and a tad lot more dangerous than the dog-sized animals we discussed just now. The problem is, there is still a great size and weight disparity between 13 Deinonychus-sized and one Tyrannosaurus. This matchup will still be pretty much like matching 13 really mean housecats up against a lion, which is not too much of a fight, as one might see. The largest prey these Deinonychus might have hunted (there is no confirmation yet) in groups ranged from 1-2.5 tons, and Tyrannosaurus, at 6.5 tons, is still way outta their league, and a great lot meaner and tougher than your typical 6.5 ton herbivorous dinosaur anyway, being a carnivore. Nope, it's extremely unlikely that 13 Deinonychus-sized animals could take on a Tyrannosaurus with any hope of winning, not unless we see 13 housecats take down a lion!

Now lets move on the the really large raptor species like Utahraptor. Now Utahraptor weighed about 700 kilos, and was about 20 feet long? So by simple math, we find that 13 Utahraptors would outweigh a Tyrannosaurus by quite a bit, so that wouldn't be too fair a fight, based on weight (6 Utahraptors is more reasonable) But for the sake of an argument, I allow 13 Utahraptors in this case.

But there is a problem. At nearly a ton, Utahraptors are nowhere near as agile as their smaller relatives. In fact, its jumping capability would be severly limited, that is, if it wanted to jump onto the Tyrannosaurus and swarm it. I seriously doubt a Utahraptor would be able to jump anywhere more than 7 feet (Forget waht you see in Walking With Dinosaurs), insufficent to get a good hold on a 16 foot tall Tyrannosaurus. And even then, such swarming activities carries a lot of risks for such a large raptor such as risking severe injury from a 11 foot-fall. And I suspect it will be extremely hard for such a large animal to get a good hold on too, given it's much increased mass. Arguably, the Utahraptors could climb onto the Tyrannosaurus from the leg, but I doubt the Tyrannosaur would allow that.

In any case, the Utahraptors would be attacking the Tyrannosaurus from the ground, which severly limits their options. Now here comes the crunch: If the Utahraptors managed to get a few bites or lacerations off the Tyrannosaurus, it would unlikely be a fatal wound unless a major artery was gouged. And this is unlikely as the major arteries in such an large animal would be buried too deep within the body to be easy target from a simple slash or bite from a Utahraptor. On the other hand, if the Tyrannosaurus connects with a Utahraptor, it would be an immediately fatal blow or at the very least extremely bad for the Utahraptor's health. In any case, the Utharaptor is going to be out of the fight. Given that, a Tyrannosaurus only needs 13 reasonably good connections to end the fight, and if things go wrong, he could easily outdistance his oppressors anyway. The Utahraptors don't have a good chance of taking out a Tyrannosaurus, not without taking heavy losses anyway.

Of course, we do forget Tyrannosaurus were not normally solitary...
from Leonard, age 14, ?, ?, ?; August 14, 2001

"my comment is RAPTORS RULE SUE DRULES!!!!!! my quistion is are velociraptors the smartest dino's?"

Deinonychosaurs have higher EQs than most dinosaurs, but _Bambiraptor_ has the highest of any non-avian dinosaur. No one can tell how smart exactly an animal is just by looking at its EQ however.
from Chandler, age ?, ?, ?, ?; August 13, 2001

"That's an insanely stupid plot, because Iguanodon lived in the Early Cretaceous, not the Late Cretaceous. I can't imagine why someone wouldn't bring that up while they were designing the ride.

Did you see the Iguanodon?"

It is a stupid plot, and it has really stupid acting on the entry "movie." But it's a fun ride. The dinosaurs all look like the "Dinosaur" dinosaurs (especially the _Carnotaurus_). I'm not sure if the _Iguanodon_ had lips like it did in "Dinosaur," it's been several years since I rode it. All the dinosaurs are mixed up from time and geographical area (there are _Alioramus_, _Iguanodon_, _Carnotaurus_, and _Compsognathus_ all existing together!) but I guess science isn't really its main aim...although it claims to be educational, which would be a false claim I guess. Anyways, don't go on the ride for accurate dinosaurs or a scientific experience, go to be chased by a cool _Carnotaurus_.
from Chandler, age ?, ?, ?, ?; August 13, 2001

T.Imperator Was Just A Nickname!It Shouldn`t Be In Dinowarz!
from euoplacephulas, age 8, Alta, CA, USA; August 13, 2001

We don't deny your points, we prefer to shoot them to bits unitl they have more holes than a target ship, which we have done so effectively here...it appears that Sean wants to disengage, which means we have him on the run! WE WIN!
from Lillian T., age 14, ?, ?, ?; August 13, 2001

"You go back in time in a car called the Time Rover (the car is the time machine) and you're supposed to go back to the Early Cretaceous but this other guy wants to capture an Iguanodon because he thinks that dinosaur is the key to learning about all dinosaurs. So you go back to the Late Cretaceous about 1 to 200 seconds before the K-T asteroid strikes to capture the Iguanodon."

That's an insanely stupid plot, because Iguanodon lived in the Early Cretaceous, not the Late Cretaceous. I can't imagine why someone wouldn't bring that up while they were designing the ride.

Did you see the Iguanodon?
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; August 13, 2001

my comment is RAPTORS RULE SUE DRULES!!!!!! my quistion is are velociraptors the smartest dino's?

No. Velociraptors aren't the smartest dinosaurs. But perhaps Bambiraptor feinbergorum is the smartest.
from Bryan, age ?, ?, ?, ?; August 13, 2001

I disagree with the t.rex fans. This is for giganotosaurus fans,everywhere. Don't respond to their messages. Its useless talking to people,who will deny you'r post anyway.
from Sean S., age 13, ?, ?, U.S.A.; August 13, 2001

Hey guys I just got back from the Animal Kingdom at Disney World. If you all don't know it already they have a DinoLand U.S.A. there. It's pretty cool. One of the best parts of DinoLand is Countdown to Extinction(which is now called Dinosaur after the movie). The ride is really cool. You go back in time in a car called the Time Rover (the car is the time machine) and you're supposed to go back to the Early Cretaceous but this other guy wants to capture an Iguanodon because he thinks that dinosaur is the key to learning about all dinosaurs. So you go back to the Late Cretaceous about 1 to 200 seconds before the K-T asteroid strikes to capture the Iguanodon. But the really cool part about the ride is a Carnotaurus chases you which is really cool(and scary). I mean I've been to WDW tons of times and rode Dinosaur tons of times too and that Carnotaurus still scares me. So if any of you plan on going to Florida anytime make sure you check out that ride it! 's awesome.

P.S. I'm a Rex fan.
from Ryan, age 13, Orlando, Florida, USA; August 13, 2001

my comment is RAPTORS RULE SUE DRULES!!!!!! my quistion is are velociraptors the smartest dino's?
from Andrea.L., age 12, ottawa, ontario, canada; August 13, 2001

"Can you tell of any ornithischians from the early Cretaceous?"

Well, there are a lot! Dinodata is a good site to look for dinosaurs from a specific time or place (it's easy to get lost trying to find these things in the Dinosauricon).
http://www.dinodata.net/Dd/Namelist/TIME/Cretaceous%20Early.htm
There are all the "Early Cretaceous" dinosaurs...not all of them are Ornithischians though, I don't think there is a way to search for a type of dinosaur and a time on that site.
from Chandler, age ?, ?, ?, ?; August 13, 2001

"This one is for Chandler:
Thanks for your input on the "acro issue." Also, do you know what kind of teeth acro had? Were they more like those of allosaurs or carcharodontosaurs? I can't seem to find a comparison anywhere.
And just FYI, I've noticed that the only people who seem to get much attention on this board are the ones who talk about t-rex fighting something, so I figured "what the heck, may as well get my two cents in as long as we're on the subject.""

I'm not quite sure...there are _Acrocanthosaurus_ teeth known but I've never seen a diagram or detailed description of them.
from Chandler, age ?, ?, ?, ?; August 13, 2001

"Another one for Chandler:
As long as I'm here, I may as well address this too. If 'everybody' knows why the JP raptors are so big, then why does the question keep coming up? I think it's safe to say most people are still in the dark.
And what about ornithischians did you want to discuss? While I personally find them a bit redundant (kinda like the rex vs. gigo debate), I'm open to new ideas. Can you tell of any ornithischians from the early Cretaceous? For my book, I will probably use Harpymimus, unless I find a better one."

Well, I was just saying that the Greg Paul explanation of JP's "raptors" is not revolutionary, that's all:)
_Harpymimus_ is not an ornithischian, but I'm not sure if you were saying it was in your post...
I was just suggesting ornithischians to get out of our theropod battle obsession.
from Chandler, age ?, ?, ?, ?; August 13, 2001

"Can you tell of any ornithischians from the early Cretaceous? For my book, I will probably use Harpymimus, unless I find a better one."

Harpymimus is a theropod. If your story is set in the Aptian of Mongolia, ornithischains might include Psittacosaurus and Wuerhosaurus. Other assorted ornithischians of the Early Cretaceous are Ouranosaurus, Gastonia, Atlascopcosaurus and Yaverlandia.
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; August 13, 2001

ok i am asking all of u my question who can draw a spinosaurus
from samy, age 10, ?, ?, ?; August 13, 2001

i like u MAX.R
from samy, age 10, ?, ?, ?; August 13, 2001

ua no t.rex is my fave but dos enybody think a pack of 13 rapters can kill a t.rex
from samy, age 10, ?, ?, ?; August 13, 2001

It needs to be remembered that in the investigation of Stephen the T-rex fossil, paleontologists have disovered the Stephen was finally killed after having his skull crushed and his neck broken almost in half by another T-rex, at which point he still fought on until he was finally killed by being bitten into two on his back. Also, remember the injuries of Sue?...Sue was mangled, crushed, and finally had one side of her face opened like a can...and she still lived on to terrorize the animals in her habitat.

The Giganotosaurus is an much-lighter and less-tough organic being which, if it did get its skull crushed, or had one side of its face opened up like a can, would die from the rapid loss of vital fluids and the inability of its' lighter frame to wistand the punishment. The T-rex is definatly the tougher of the two, and the the super bite the T-rex had allowed it to give a great deal more damage than Giganotosaurus can ever hope to give. And if you factor in higher speed, agility....we might as well not have a debate here at all. T-rex in a landslide.

yours truly, and a little saddened that he was dragged into such an argument,
from jere, age ?, ?, ?, ?; August 13, 2001

Assuming that Giganotosaurus even shows up in a dinowars debate after his pathetic showing against the normal T-rex, its pretty obvious that the rediscovered T-rex will make dog meat out of the Giganotosaurus. Ole Giggy Sissy coudn't beat Rexy without his super indestructable imperator morph, and against the imperator morph body enhanced Rexy, the Giganotosaurus won't last long. True, the T-rex was killed by Spinosaurus in the JP3, but Spinosaurus was helped by none other than Hollywood's Super Unbelievable Impossible Physics/Logic Suspension Misconception Starting Plot Engine (tm.), which protected him from rexy's superbite. Spino actually did very little, it was the polt engine that was mainly at work. My prediction: T-Rex covers himself in Crisco, thus rendering himself almost invisible to the Giganotosaurus, before pummeling him to death with a truck load of JP3 merchandise that never sold.
from Hassan Ali Hammy Salammy, age ?, ?, ?, ?; August 13, 2001

"But, there is a possiblility greater than u might think that Giga or Spino could win. Its like ive been sayin this whole time, it all depends on who got the first bite in and where the fight was."

HAHAHAHAHA!

Ok, let's be fair and up their chances from 0.5 percent to 1 percent.
from Damean, age ?, ?, ?, ?; August 13, 2001

"Are t.rex fans peaceful?(NO WAY!) T.rex fans insulted us,before we insulted them! (I'm afraid Shane's latest post is true.)"

I'm afraid Sean's latest post is untrue, so this means that Shane's latest post is also untrue...it good to see Sean posting such short and pointless messages...it means he's outta ammo to shoot...so we WIN YAY!!!!!!!
from Damean, age ?, ?, ?, ?; August 13, 2001

"Usen,north america and south america weren't connected 65 million years ago,thus giganotosaurus and t.rex probably never met."

NOW THEN YOU KNOW??!!!!!

3...
2...
1...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
from hehe, age ?, ?, ?, ?; August 13, 2001

"You're a pretty young scientist and I wouldn't consider JP3 to be an accurate source of refrence"

HAHAHAHAHA! That's a good one!
from Honkie Tong, age 17, ?, ?, ?; August 13, 2001

"Now, I find it funny, but if we go by Horner's scavenging ideas, then we find that it was very likely that Tyrannosaurs were very adapted to robbing others of their kills. I seriously doubt, any predator on the Earth would be willing to fight a Tyrannosaur that just refuses to back down. There is fossil evidence of Tyrannosaurs biting, killing, and fighting each other. Nowhere else do we see evidence of this so largely in predatory dinosaurs. This is very strong evidence that Tyrannosaurs just wouldn't run away from a fight. Something rare indeed in the world of predators. "

Hmm...Tyrannosaurus do run away from a fight...from another meaner Tyrannosaur of course. But they were pretty mean animals, as the fossil record shows. They didn't mind bashing the crap out of each other and in some case even killing and eating each other. Tyrannosaurs are very mean creatures, despite being so social.

"I was simply saying that, GENERALLY SPEAKING, if an animal is larger, it will be harder to take down. "

This is extremely true, but of course, besides size, we must also look at the construction of the animal. A 7-ton Ankylosaur is certainly going to take a heck load more pounding than a 9-ton Triceratops! But I'd like to point out that Tyrannosaurus' was considerably hardier built than Giganotosaurus. And he did pack a much more massive punch than Giganotosaurus, so it kinda cancels out the weight issue here. In fact, given the fact that a Tyrannosaur bite causes more than 13 TIMES the damage of a Giganotosaur bite, I'd be surprised if a 6-ton Tyrannosaur could not hurt a 7-ton Giganotosaur faster than it was hurting the rex! And that's the main reason we say he's going to win!

"All I'm saying is gigo MAY have stood a better chance than a lot of you are giving him credit for. That doesn't mean I think he'd win."

I certainly don't think Giganotosaurus was a pushover, but he's certainly going to be at a serious disadvantage!

"( I actually suspect both combatants would die as a result of the fight, gigo because of a snapped neck, t-rex a little bit later due to blood loss.)"

I have to contend on this issue. Earlier back, I've established that Tyrannosaurus was extremely tough. Unless a majory artery was gouged, any bite (or in fact even multiple of bites) from Giganotosaurus is not going to be fatal to the Tyrannosaurus. It might slow it down for a few weeks, but its not something that I'd expect to be life threatening (of course, if it was slowed down so badly that it could not hunt for food, that would be a bad thing, but then again, you have 7 tons of Giganotosaur!) Of course, the story is entirely different for Giganotosaurus, taking one solid bite from a Tyrannosaurus would be life-altering, even if he survived it, usually in the negative direction. The main problem is, Tyrannosaurus will be killing him so fast with his vastly superior hitting power that he will not have enough time to inflict a sufficent amount of damage on Tyrannosaurus! And the bad news is, Tyrannosaurus has the option of engaging and disengaging to evade attacks due to his superior ground speed, while Giganotosaurus had no such option. That's certainly bad news. The only way Giganotosaurus could win this was if he got very lucky on the first bite and managed to get a very good bite on T.rexes' neck. On the other hand, T.rex had no problem with killing Giganotosaurus by biting almost any part of the opponent, save the tail. That's quite a big handicap in Giganotosaurus' case!

My personal opinion is not that T.rex is supercarnivore god supreme, but rather he had quite a good edge over all the other supposed "throne-takers" that he's still the heavy weight champ!

But Spino is one heck of an unlikely character though! Giga could take him down...EASILY!

"Actually, I prefer to think of ourselves as ravenous Tyrannosaurs..."

Cool! Lets call ourselves the Rex-a-tak pac!
from Honkie Tong, age 17, ?, ?, ?; August 13, 2001

Another one for Chandler:
As long as I'm here, I may as well address this too. If 'everybody' knows why the JP raptors are so big, then why does the question keep coming up? I think it's safe to say most people are still in the dark.
And what about ornithischians did you want to discuss? While I personally find them a bit redundant (kinda like the rex vs. gigo debate), I'm open to new ideas. Can you tell of any ornithischians from the early Cretaceous? For my book, I will probably use Harpymimus, unless I find a better one.
from MaxR, age 17, Detroit, MI, USA; August 12, 2001

Just FYI to all:
The wrestling analogy I used earlier was intended to be general. Of course rex and gigo won't literally wrestle. I'm simply pointing out that (to quote the 'Godzilla' poster) SIZE DOES MATTER. Namely, a bigger fighter is usually harder to KO, regardless of the other guy's footspeed. That's all. How about rex vs. carcharodontosaurus?
I'm actually more interested in material for my novel, like tha "acro issue" (see previous postings). I hope to make my book a little more accurate than JP.
from MaxR, age 17, Detroit, MI, USA; August 12, 2001

And finally, one for Leonard:
First of all, chill out, Leo! You (like a lot of people here) are taking everything I say way too seriously. When I say 'no offense,' I mean 'this is just a good-natured poke-in-the-ribs,' if you will.
As to your counterpoints, 'touche!" They are well-taken and I'll be the first to admit that I'm not nearly as knowledgeable about comparative morphology as some of the people here. I specifically said I was not sure about the weights of either species, and, of course, if there is only a one ton difference, it may be almost negligible, especially in this case. I was simply saying that, GENERALLY SPEAKING, if an animal is larger, it will be harder to take down. I also said I was just throwing ideas out to get responses; I wasn't expecting a word-by-word transcription from a textbook. All I'm saying is gigo MAY have stood a better chance than a lot of you are giving him credit for. That doesn't mean I think he'd win. ( I actually suspect both combatants would die as a result of the fight, gigo because of a snapped neck, t-rex a little bit later due to blood loss.)
from MaxR, age 17, Detroit, MI, USA; August 12, 2001

This one is for Chandler:
Thanks for your input on the "acro issue." Also, do you know what kind of teeth acro had? Were they more like those of allosaurs or carcharodontosaurs? I can't seem to find a comparison anywhere.
And just FYI, I've noticed that the only people who seem to get much attention on this board are the ones who talk about t-rex fighting something, so I figured "what the heck, may as well get my two cents in as long as we're on the subject."
from MaxR, age 17, Detroit, MI, USA; August 12, 2001

This one is for Honkie Tong:
I actually (the favorite word on this site) had fun decoding your little message. However, in my defense, (1.) I didn't know you were Asian, and (2.) I was not really including you as one of the bad grammar-users. Most of your postings are pretty well-written, w/ few errors of any kind. Which is rather funny, since that puts you ahead of a good number of the Americans here. But seriously, if someone is going to try to sound smart (and you obviously are smart), good grammar helps a lot. Besides, it was just a joke!
In fact, since you seem informed, how would you classify acrocanthosaurus (as I asked in an earlier general posting)? I'd like to hear your take on the issue.
from MaxR, age 17, Detroit, MI, USA; August 12, 2001

"I'm a scientist and i say that a Spinosaurus can kill a t-rex"

You're a pretty young scientist and I wouldn't consider JP3 to be an accurate source of refrence.
from Ryan, age 13, Orlando, Florida, USA; August 12, 2001

hey are us dragons included in any of this ?????? :|???
from Angel, age 1028364839, Classified, texas, us; August 12, 2001

I'm a scientist and i say that a Spinosaurus can kill a t-rex
from Brad W, age 16, ?, ?, USA; August 12, 2001

The more recent skeletal reconstructions in the Scientific American books have the correct hands. I think he knows.
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; August 12, 2001

Sorry usen,at first I misunderstood you'r point.
from Sean.S, age 13, ?, ?, U.S.A.; August 12, 2001

Usen,north america and south america weren't connected 65 million years ago,thus giganotosaurus and t.rex probably never met.
from Sean.S, age 13, ?, ?, U.S.A.; August 12, 2001

Are t.rex fans peaceful?(NO WAY!) T.rex fans insulted us,before we insulted them! (I'm afraid Shane's latest post is true.)
from Sean.S, age 13, ?, ?, U.S.A.; August 12, 2001

DITTO!
from Sean.S, age 13, ?, ?, U.S.A.; August 12, 2001

"Has anybody heard new info about the possible relationship between acrocanthosaurus and carcharodontosaurus? I know both are generally considered allosaurids, but I have recently heard that the acro may have been more closely related to the Sereno's "shark tooth." I'm wondering if scientists, going on the assumption that acro was an allosaur, may have underestimated its mass (2-3.5 tons). Any constructive response would be much appreciated."

I have always placed _Acrocanthosaurus_ as some sort of basal carcharodontosaurine--the shape of the head is very carcharodontosaur-like.
from Chandler, age ?, ?, ?, ?; August 12, 2001

"I'm sorry, but I have to point this out, if only for a humorous comparison. Most of the postings here by 6-10 year-old kids are debates on who would win in a fight (ie. t-rex vs. gigo; t-rex vs. spino; t-rex vs. raptors; t-rex vs. godzilla; etc). Coincidently, most of the scientific talk among the older age group concerns the exact same issue, only with bigger words. Just thought that was kinda funny."

It is funny, seeing how your post is about the exact same thing! Actually, we keep trying to get off the _T. rex_ v. assorted other theropods issue, but it keeps coming back...how come we can't talk about ornithischians for a while??
from Chandler, age ?, ?, ?, ?; August 12, 2001

"All right, time to set the record straight on the whole JP velociraptor issue. Michael Crichton (who wrote JP in 1989) based his raptors on info from an older book. In this book, the scientist/author had concluded that the Asian velocipator was the same animal as the North American deinonychus, but since velociraptor was the older name, it should take precedence. Thus, Crichton felt justified in making his raptors the size of deinonychus. This is why Grant is unearthing unnaturally large raptors in Montana, where in fact velociraptors were never found, but deinonychus were. There is no need for idle speculation on the identity of the movie animals (ie. noasaurus; utahraptor; etc). End of story."

Yes, that's been known for quite a while now. The author was Greg Paul in case you were wondering. You can also see Paul's influence in the fact that the JP "raptors" and most other theropods have pronated hands (for some reason he illustrates them this way). Does anyone have any brand-new illustrations from Mr. Paul? Does he still draw theropods with pronated hands?
from Chandler, age ?, ?, ?, ?; August 12, 2001

"if he fought Spinosaurus (if the fight was in the woods) he'd have the advantage (if Spino and Rex were fighting on a river bank, Spino'd have the advantage)."

Shane, I've been wondering for some time now, what exactly is this based on? I think that this is the second or third time that I have read this, but, I'm wondering, what makes you think that Spino would have the advantage on a river bank? Is it because Spinosaurus is a lighter animal? If this is the case, I'm sure a 4 ton animal will have about as much trouble as sinking in the mud as a 6 or 7 ton animal would. They are both still very heavy animals for treking through mud either way that you look at it.

Or maybe this is based on some kind of adaptation that Spinosaurus would have due to it's primary lifestyle as a fishermen? I think this sort of makes sense, in theory. I mean if an animal hunts in the water, you think it would be more well adapted for an aquatic lifestyle right? We honestly don't know what Spinos legs were like since they were never discovered. But I seriously doubt that they were much different than Baryonyx's legs.

In any case, I don't think this would matter much if they were on the river bank, and not in the water. So, do you cre to fill me in? The only terrain I could somewhat think of Spino having "the advantage" in, would be fairly deep, yet shallow water. Where Spino may be able to be at face height with a T-Rex if it can swim at the surface better.
from Usen, age 20, ?, ?, USA; August 12, 2001

Argh! No Barney! No Barney! Dinosaurs all unite against Barney!
from ?, age ?, ?, ?, ?; August 12, 2001

"So in the Crichton Universe, where logic actually means something, Spinosaurus slips into delirium after losing a massive amount of blood from the short fight between him and T.rex but is aware that the T.rex has unraveled his intestines and is jump-roping with them. Sadly, he had strayed out of the logic and reality-suspended happy-movie JP and strayed into the real one."

You do know that Spieldberg wasn't behind JP3 right? I'm only hoping if there's a JP4, he returns, but I doubt that this will be the case.. Yes, I have a feeling that the days of being able to watch Jurassic park movies for any kind of sensibility are long since gone. Making the people stupid, and illogical is one thing. (just like in Lost World when the one guy tells everyone not to go into the tall grass, then follows them all in himself)But if the dinos also don't make any sense anymore, then there's really no point in wasting time watching these films.

Now back to the world of proffesional predator fighting, I hink the risk taking factor would play a major role in determining if battles would ever happen or not. Considering that by the time the Cretaceous rolled around there were little, or no Allosaurids left (I say "little" because maybe there were some that haven't been unearthed yet)means they were beaten out by one of two reasons, or more likely, a combination of both reasons.

First up: More powerful and intelligent prey items. Ceratopsians were relatively small when they first started showing up. So it wouldn't be that early ceratopsians would be able to kill them, but rather they were smart enough to avoid these predators all together.

Second: Competition from the "death jaw" equipped Tyrannosaurs.I doubt the first Tyrannosaurs were as "smart" as the Rex model,but I think it's safe to assume that they either were somewhat smarter, or had better strategy. As we have seen with modern animals, the more aggressive individuals can beat out the well established top predators by being more "daring." In nature, no predator will risk serious injury if it can be avoided. This may have played a key role. The Tyrannosaurs may have been very aggressive, "risk takers" willing to risk serious injury, or even death in order to snatch a decent meal.

Now, I find it funny, but if we go by Horner's scavenging ideas, then we find that it was very likely that Tyrannosaurs were very adapted to robbing others of their kills. I seriously doubt, any predator on the Earth would be willing to fight a Tyrannosaur that just refuses to back down. There is fossil evidence of Tyrannosaurs biting, killing, and fighting each other. Nowhere else do we see evidence of this so largely in predatory dinosaurs. This is very strong evidence that Tyrannosaurs just wouldn't run away from a fight. Something rare indeed in the world of predators.

As for the Spinosaur and Giganotosaur supposedly being top predators.. Well, all I have to say is, where is the fossil evidence? Now this may not be a totally fair question to ask, since probably less than 10% of fossils have even been unearthed. But there have been several T-Rex victims, and Allosaurus victims unearthed. Now if a good 60% out of the dino fossils that we know were killed by a predator were done by T-Rex, doesn't this show at least to an extent that T-Rex was quite the busy fellow?

If Spinosaurus and Giganotosaurus were half as effective as some people make them out to be, the victims should be piling up. But this is not the case. As far as I know, there hasn't been a single Giga or Spino victim unearthed. This is not to say that I don't think there are any, in Giga's case. Just that this dino had a harder life than a Tyrannosaur would, and went hungry on a much more frequent basis. Or perhaps Giganotosaurus were far more scarce. Which still doesn't mean much, since Rex's were also quite rare in terms of numbers.
from Usen, age 20, ?, ?, USA; August 12, 2001

The sixth and last chapter of The Giganotosaurus Story is here!

Its coming...The Pteranodon Story
from Shane S., age 1000, nowhere, private property, who cares?; August 12, 2001

mr. floppy (and all others who think t-rex is invincible) I have some news: T-rex wont always win! I know if he fought Giganotosaurus, he'd have the advantage, and if he fought Spinosaurus (if the fight was in the woods) he'd have the advantage (if Spino and Rex were fighting on a river bank, Spino'd have the advantage). But, there is a possiblility greater than u might think that Giga or Spino could win. Its like ive been sayin this whole time, it all depends on who got the first bite in and where the fight was.
from Shane S., age 1000, nowhere, private property, who cares?; August 12, 2001

"Just in case I haven't ticked off enough people, I have to say that, for all their dinosaur knowledge, very few people on this board would pass English class. The spelling, syntax, subject-verb agreement, and tense consistency of most of you leaves something to be desired, regardless of your scientific savvy, or lack thereof. Have you guys heard of proof-reading before posting?"

Yeah, but I only put my posts through Microsoft word if they contain one of my reports, usaully, I do nott vother about rhe eingrish as we re oll ankious to git to de voint. Zis izs vot eingrish kass anyvay. I'd zill rezpect vanybovy who ziz scienzitifically savvy dipite zis eringlish. Van vesides, I're asian, vot 2 meenteion I is on a dinosaurus veppager, zo eingrish zis vot ezactaly vine tov pirovity. I vope me vost dun sround zarzastic.

Vank You.
from Honkie Tong, age 17, ?, ?, ?; August 12, 2001

"Well, the reason the lions couldn't kill it was the lions were inexperienced and didn't know the proper way to kill or didn't know that lions are just not suited to kill a water buffalo. Or maybe they were desperate and acted rashly. If you didn't catch those reasons while watching the footage, you are just as stupid as I supposedly am. "

Just admit it. T-Rex is the KING of the dinos and you hate it.

And with a 2000N (at most) bite force. Don't expect even in your wildest imagination that a Gigano would make a decent bite grip at T-Rex.
from Guile, age 19, Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines; August 12, 2001

"As a former wrestler, I can tell you that even a slight weight difference can have a very big impact on the outcome of a match."

Of course, I do seriously suspect that these two dinosaurs are going to do anything that's going to be vaguely like wrestling. And given the morphlogical differences between Giganotosaurus and Tyrannosaurus, and the fact that Tyrannosaurus was most probably stronger...I'm not sure if that's a good argument. But argubaly, I believe the meanest and baddest weapons system is the one that's going to be the biggest factor here! Lacking good arms and being of different species, these two dinos are not going to make good wrestlers nor are they going to do some wrestling as part of their "winning the rights to mate" ritual. As these were large, 6 ton+ bipedial dinosaurs without significant arms, they're not going to tumble the ground and over each other like cats, dingos or humans fighting. Rather, a battle like this involves agility and speed, to bite while to avoid being bitten. And the sharpest reflexes (an advantage T.rex would have had due to his neurogical advantage), fastest mo! vements (T.rex would have had that to an advantage too, being more gracile and muscled) and baddest bite (T.rex definately had that to his advantage!) will win.

Personally, I can't figure out how a fight to the death could take place at all (whoever gave Sean that idea?). The most I can envision is both animals staring at each other in a challange until they got hungry and decided to part ways, or at best, a short scuffle after which the animal taking the first bite will leave as fast as possible (though as we are talking about Tyrannosaurus here, leaving after being bitten by it is kind or hard to survive.). Though if you are talking about a fight to the death alamo-alamo style, Tyrannosaurus will be better equipped to win the day.
from Leonard, age 14, ?, ?, ?; August 12, 2001

"One more thing. Why are the T.rex fans always right? Here's a post saying just that: "

I don't think they are always right! Personally I saw Honkie screw up once! (Tyrannosaurus are carnosaurs? No offense, you don't mind if I say this? Too late anyway!) And me too (Nanotyrannus was larger than Tinker?)! Hmm...but when they check their fact and get the science right, they'll be pretty hard to beat. In fact, I'd say they currently have a rock-solid case here. It's not hard to be right, you just have to MAKE SURE you're right.

" And another.There goes that "actually" again... "

Actually, what's wrong with actually? If you are wrong and a person wants to tell you that there is a fact that you're missing out, they'll go (everybody say it with me) "actually". Unless you have an ego problem, I don't see how you can have a problem with that. I don't.

""Actually" I was visiting the Cincinnati museum. I would like to know of a museum that shows the "right" legs. "

Sadly, most T.rex fossil legs are wrong. Chances are, if you T.rex fossil was put up before 1995 and it hasn't been updated. It'll be very likely yo have the wrong legs.

"Well, the reason the lions couldn't kill it was the lions were inexperienced and didn't know the proper way to kill or didn't know that lions are just not suited to kill a water buffalo. Or maybe they were desperate and acted rashly. If you didn't catch those reasons while watching the footage, you are just as stupid as I supposedly am. "

I have no idea about what you guys think, but traditionally, water bufflaoes are hard to bring down. A few animals will just stand there and die. In fact, the lions rarely bite it to death, instead they work their way to the nose of the animal and clap their jaws over the animals' mouth and nostrils to suffocate it. But considering the idea that Giganotosaurus could not have done this, Usen might have a point.

"Unbalanced? Why are us non T.rex fans unbalanced? "

Usually, if you look around, T.rex fans are a peace-loving bunch. And when a guy comes along with a theory that one of us don't agree with, we'll just tell us the scientific prespective behind the matter and that's that. But unfortunately, some people take this as an indication to go into "must kill and defeat T.rex mode" and do whatever they can, insult, lie, back-stab, character assasinate to achieve that goal of seeing their prespective accepted, no matter how scientifically nuts it might be. These are the unbalanced anti-T.rex people.

"Well, duh, of course. Everything we know about dinosaurs is from the fossils, so if that's wrong, we are all wrong. I happened to look at the rib cage of Stan the Tyrannosaur, and the ribs were pushed out to form a very large arc, and the hip of Tyrannosaur hung very low indeed. If that isn't fat, I don't know what is. "

Ah, but you forget that these are not adaptations towards being "fat" but rather adaptations towards being muscular and gracile and energy-efficent. Now that you have laided out your descriptions, let me explain what they actually mean.

"The ribs were pushed out to form a very large arc"

That's good! Tyrannosaurids have much more internal chest area than most other dinosaurs like Giganotosaurus mainly because of the development of a more birdlike and efficent breathing system. And if you look carefully at the ribs, you'll notice that they are quite heavily built, mainly to provide superior protection to the shest and also to act as a anchor point for muscles. Remember Tyrannosaurus was a muscular dinosaur and his frame would have been heavily built.
And superior chest volume plus a better breathing system meant Tyrannosaurus had more stamina for high activity and energy-intensive movements. So all in all, we'd expect Tyrannosaurus to be much more active, faster, and agile than a slender-cage like Giganotosaurus.

ps: Ostriches, like Tyrannosaurus have very large and rounded ribcages too, an active, high-speed runner's adaptation.

"and the hip of Tyrannosaur hung very low indeed. "

That's true. Tyrannosaurus had a very different way of moving compaired to other animals like Giganotosaurus, and if you look closer at the space between his pubis and his legs, you'll realise that the pubis anchored most of the muscles used for moving. Considering the fact that Tyrannosaurus had more powerful and advanced limbs than Giganotosaurus, and was a much and agile faster mover, the deep and low hipbone is a necessary adaptation.

I hope that cleared your doubts.
from Leonard, age 14, ?, ?, ?; August 12, 2001

"That said, I'm going to throw a few of my ideas out here, probably to be ripped apart by the message board's resident ravenous velociraptors, Honkie Tong and his crew of know-it-alls-with-too-much-time-on-their-hands."

Actually, I prefer to think of ourselves as ravenous Tyrannosaurs, and I don't regard myself as a know-it-all, but I think Honkie is, however, exceptionally skilled when it comes to this, I don't care if he he likes it or not:-) Of course, we'll rip your idea apart not simply for the sake of it, but for the simple reason they are flawed and easily to rip apart.

"(No offense, but you guys do seem a bit. . . snippy, to say the least. Of course, now you're going to attack me regardless.)"

None taken , but of course, you should be honest when you say "no offense", for obviously you ment for it to offend.

Now let's get down to the matter of shotting up your points with vaild scientific data and logic:

"While I'll admit that rex was probably the most advanced predator yet discovered, I'm not sure just how much that would matter in a fight with a gigo (not that I'm advocating gigo either)."

Ok...nothing too wrong here...

"Yes, rex was probably smarter, based on braincase comparisons, but how much thought would actually go into a head-to-head fight between two gigantic carnosaurs? I doubt strategy or planning would play a significant role, especially in a one-on-one fight (disregarding the fact that both are theorized to have hunted in pairs or even packs)."

Ok...nothing major here.

"Binocular vision is another thing I have a hard time seeing as a major issue. In a head-to-head battle, they are going to be pretty darn close to each other, making the judgment of distance a moot point. Also, some scientists dispute just how good rexy's depth perception was, although I personally believe it to have been quite adequate for his purposes."

Uh oh...though when it comes to simply biting you opponent, having depth preception does not really matter in the case of 40 foot combatants. BUT if you are going to aim for a particular part of the body (eg, the neck), having depth preception is going to be extremely pivotal in your sucess. And of course, the ability to bite the animal precisely on a certain part of the body, rather than the simplistic slashing and lacerating Giganotosaurus used, is going to translate to a significant tatical advantage.

"Last but not least, let's not forget the size differences here. More specifically, the MASS differences. I have heard anywhere from 5 to 7 tons for an average rex and 7 to 8 for a gigo (correct me if I'm wrong here). This could give the gigo up to a 3-ton weight advantage over rex! As a former wrestler, I can tell you that even a slight weight difference can have a very big impact on the outcome of a match."

[Brace yourself, everyone :-) ]

AAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Would someone PLEASE kill this bugaboo of an "argument" for me? Thank you!

Firstly, I'd like to point that your weight estimates between the two combatants appear to be using the lower weight estimate of Tyrannosaurus and the upper weight estimate of Giganotosaurus. (Which paleontologists say are rather extreme) A better match up will be better achived using the most accepted weight estimates 6.5 tons for T.rex and 7.5 tons for Giganotosaurus. While this still translates to a one ton weight advantage in Giganotosaurus case, you have ignored the fact that the morphlogy of the animals play a large role in both this case.

Despite endless usage in old ornithological textbooks everywhere, there is NO (count them, No) extreme morphlogical similarity between a Tyrannosaurus rex and an Allosaurid like Giganotosaurus. I would buy your argument of size if Tyrannosaurus was working on the basic Allosaurid design, which he was not. Tyrannosaurus was quite a different animal indeed. Let me illustrate the limitations of your anatology:

1)Firstly, he belonged to Coelurosauria, ok this is not an advantage, but is just to establish a background.

2)Secondly, and this counts a great lot. Tyrannosaurus was more heavily muscled than Giganotosaurus. In fact, Tyrannosaurus had up to (qoute Honkie) 30-35 percent more muscle mass than Giganotosaurus of the same size. And this is not going by proportion, this is going by weight. And if you give the 10 percent advantage Giganotosaurus has over Tyrannosaurus by size (according to decribed stats), Tyrannosaurus is still going to be 20 percent more muscular than Giganotosaurus, and that's going to count.

3)Tyrannosaurus also had a more "efficent" body. He had a variety of derived features over Giganotosaurus that made him more efficent when it came to activity and also gave him greater reserves of energy which he could use for combat (now I am not making this up but getting this off my biology textbook). These features include air-sacs in the (seventh?) vetrebre, a possible avian breathing system, and arctometatarsalian legs (I'll explain the legs later).

4) We're not sure if the size compairism holds anymore, new Tyrannosaurus rex discoveries, nicknamed the "robustus imperator" morph, put it at least on par with the size of Giganotosaurus. And another amazing Tyrannosaurus rex discovery actually indicates that it was 15 percent (personally, to be conservative, I'll buy 10 percent) larger than Giganotosaurus, bigger than, the new Giganotosaurus speimen (8 percent larger)they have not yet dug out of the ground.

5) I'm don't think size hold as a good argument between animals of considerably different designs. For example, lions which weight about 150-250 kilos, will almost always prevail over the tiger 300-350 kilos in a fight mainly due to their greater agressivity, agility and available strength (In fact, it was the lions that drove the tigers out of the african savannah). I'm not saying that size can be discounted totally, but it dosen't play a large factor when it come to animals of quite different designs. T.rex was built more like your Mike Tyson while Giganotosaurus was built more like your basketball player.

Of course, there are other considerable advantages Tyrannosaurus did have over Giganotosaurus.

1) A significantly more robust build.

Tyrannosaurids are significantly more robust and hardly in build when compaired to allosaurids like Giganotosaurus. This equates to a singificant increse in toughness and the ability to take damage. I think this is quite a sigificant advantage when it comes to a bloody fight. Tyrannosaurus would be able to take quite a bit more pounding than Giganotosaurus.

2) A incredible advantage in firepower.

Firepower is a misnomer here actually, bite effect will be a better term. Scientists have discovered that Tyrannosaurus bit with far greater effect than any land-based predator alive and that ever lived by a great margin. In fact, Tyrannosaurus will bite AT LEAST 10 times harder than Giganotosaurus. Now this would be pretty impressive and usless if Tyrannosaurus didn't have the right tools, but he did. He had massive, deeply rooted teeth designed to wistand the compressional forces he exerted. Most carnivores relied on lacerations and flesh wounds to bleed the prey. But Tyrannosaurus went one step further by developing the ability to completely rend bone and pull the muscles and tendons off the body entirely. He was doing damage on a totally different level altogether. Compairing what your typical allosaurid like Giganotosaurus can do to a Tyrannosaurus bite is like compairing a jab thrown by your 7 year old cousion to one of the KOers thrown by professional bozers. A single bite from Tyrannosaurus will be immediately crippling to the victim if not fatal. By contrast, a single Giganotosaur bite can't do anywhere near the same.

3) Agilty and speed

Now though it may seem obvious that Tyrannosaurus, being of less mass would move faster, what we mainly fail to factor in was that Tyrannosaurus wasn't a simple carnosaur design. He had a lot of advanced derived features that will make this all the more evident. But I'll focus on the legs. Tyrannosaurus was actually speedier than A.fragilis, a allosaurid 3 tons lighter than him! The secret lies in the arctometatarsalian leg design of Tyrannosaurus and which allowed him to save alot of energy (up to 35 percent) while moving and also made for faster speed and better agility. Better, as Tyrannosaurus had above adverage gracile limbs for his size, factored in with his arctometatarsalian leg design, would have made him extremely fast and agile for his size. More than enough to hold a very sigificant advantage over Giganotosaurus. This would have made hit-and-run tatics, which Tyrannosaurus almost certianly used against large and dangerous animals, very effective against the much slower moving Giganotosaurus.

Well, this is my personal take on your points and such. I'd like to say that I argue my points only from a scientific-intregic point of view, instead of defending Tyrannosaurus. If the dinosaur was good, the science speaks. And personally I'm not a big fan of dino-fights, but rather, I find it annoying when people start posting things that have little or no scientific intergity, so I start talking. Unfortunately, a great part (in fact, most of it) of this is coming from the giga side!
from Leonard, age 14, ?, ?, ?; August 12, 2001

It looks like I'm sending pictures in the wrong dumb way it was even deleted.Secondly I never liked sending pictures anymore.NEVER.
from Donovan c., age 12, ?, singapore, ?; August 11, 2001

Giganotosaurus stalks stealthily through the foliage, peering intently at the Tyrannosauruses. What he doesn't know is that he is also being watched...
Deep under the island, in a crude temple, a force of supreme darkness sits brooding. It felt comfortable here; the brute animals that roamed it's surface had some primitave resemblance to itself. Perhaps, it mused, it had once been something like them. This island is its sanctuary, as it regathers its dark powers for its next attempt to enslave, corupt, and destroy the pitiful allosaur race. And gain revenge on a few particularly repulsive humans along the way. Jason, Sean, Brian, T-man. Sigh, so much carnage, so little time. But now this idiot is prying into its domain. Very well, foolish dinosaur, you will be delt with. The darkness in the room shifts and moves, revealing a flash of poisonous-looking magenta. A presence drifts upward out of the arcane room, and the temple lightens visibly.

On the surface, Giganotosaurus is to engrossed in a sick Tyrannosaurus it had decided to attack to notice the way the sunlight seems to be weekening. The Tyrannosaurus becomes spooked at something and moves away, distracting the Giganotosaursu from the mist creeping over the ground and the hissing, sephulceral wind that has risen. It finally drags itself away, leaving Giganotosaurus alone under a darkenned sky that even he cannot ignore. The mist thickens and congeals, bearing a stench of things rotting and dead, things better forgotton. Before blacking out forever, he hears a faint whisper;

I... Love... You...
You... Love... Me...

Back in the cavern, the thing settles itself into the shadows after subsiding on the dinosaur's puny existance. It is again content... and it will wait.

Barney is the ultimate dinosaur! But T.rex could beat a giga though.
from Barney, age ?, ?, ?, ?; August 11, 2001

Any action involving Jurassic Park type dino matches must take place simultaneously in two parallel universes: the Universe of Crichton and the Universe of Speilberg.

The Universe of Crichton is generally a dark, vicious place. People die horrible, grisly deaths, and slow ones at that. Though these people sometimes bring it on themselves by exhibiting Evil Corporate Greed(tm) or Dissing Mother Nature(tm), they can also die simply from being at the wrong place/wrong time. Babies and dogs are not safe, and you'd better not fall asleep lest you wake up with a procompsognathid chewing off your face. It is a place where real world logic and sense actually work.

The Universe of Spielberg, on the other hand, is a bright, happy, cheerful place, a more PG-13 type place if you will. The only people who die are Politically Incorrect Sinners, such as lawyers, smokers, hunters, and guys who have girly pictures for their screen wallpaper. Women and children are in no real danger. The Universe of Spielberg is the stuff of Happy Meal tie-ins. It is a place where real world logic and common sense is suspended for the sake of making a movie.

So in the Crichton Universe, where logic actually means something, Spinosaurus slips into delirium after losing a massive amount of blood from the short fight between him and T.rex but is aware that the T.rex has unraveled his intestines and is jump-roping with them. Sadly, he had strayed out of the logic and reality-suspended happy-movie JP and strayed into the real one.

However, things look mighty different in Spielbergland. You see, more people can pay to visit Spielberg's Universe if it's not saddled with a cumbersome R rating. Besides, Spinosaurus action figures sell better when the Spinosaurus haven't been disemboweled by the Tyrant lizard king. And wanting to promote their new "bad boy" of Jurassic Park, the director will suspend basic laws of logic (like how the heck 20,000 newtons of force will fail to even scratch the Spino's neck) to make sure nothing untoward happens to their new dino. So in the Spielberg Universe, Spinosaurus will use plot devices to defeat the T.rex, and he goes off camera while the human characters sleep happily on a tree limb while the John Williams' music underscores the grandeur of it all. Meanwhile, the Spinosaurus takes out a flock of politically incorrect baddies and unimportant characters, including Bill Gates, a Boy Scouts pack leader, a dino-hunting hired-gun, and a guy who works for Fox News. Of course, we're not even sure the T.rex was defeated as the camera cuts away before we see much carnage.

But it's obvious the Spino fans want to argue with real logic here, so the best fit would be the Crichton Universe. Sadly these T.rexes in the REAL Crichton Jurassic Park are REAL T.rexes with REAL dinosaur tendancies, they can do a lot more than the computer-generated, anatromic, plot-device hindered ones did. The most Spino's going to get to do is yell "OH CRIKEEEEYY-AUGH!" before either a T.rex steps on his throat after knocking him down, eats him, or a combination of both.
from Mr Floppy, age ?, ?, ?, ?; August 11, 2001

Just in case I haven't ticked off enough people, I have to say that, for all their dinosaur knowledge, very few people on this board would pass English class. The spelling, syntax, subject-verb agreement, and tense consistency of most of you leaves something to be desired, regardless of your scientific savvy, or lack thereof. Have you guys heard of proof-reading before posting?
from MaxR, age 17, Detroit, MI, USA; August 11, 2001

I'm currently working on a novel about dinosaurs and I'm fielding suggestions for unique/unusual species to be included (non-dinos are also under consideration). However, they MUST be from the EARLY CRETACEOUS PERIOD (that's Berriasian to Albian for you nit-picky ones). Feel free to post your dino-candidates here, or e-mail me at dinosaur_guy(at)hotmail.com
Thanks
from MaxR, age 17, Detroit, MI, USA; August 11, 2001

I'm sorry, but I have to point this out, if only for a humorous comparison. Most of the postings here by 6-10 year-old kids are debates on who would win in a fight (ie. t-rex vs. gigo; t-rex vs. spino; t-rex vs. raptors; t-rex vs. godzilla; etc). Coincidently, most of the scientific talk among the older age group concerns the exact same issue, only with bigger words. Just thought that was kinda funny.
That said, I'm going to throw a few of my ideas out here, probably to be ripped apart by the message board's resident ravenous velociraptors, Honkie Tong and his crew of know-it-alls-with-too-much-time-on-their-hands. (No offense, but you guys do seem a bit. . . snippy, to say the least. Of course, now you're going to attack me regardless.)
While I'll admit that rex was probably the most advanced predator yet discovered, I'm not sure just how much that would matter in a fight with a gigo (not that I'm advocating gigo either).
Yes, rex was probably smarter, based on braincase comparisons, but how much thought would actually go into a head-to-head fight between two gigantic carnosaurs? I doubt strategy or planning would play a significant role, especially in a one-on-one fight (disregarding the fact that both are theorized to have hunted in pairs or even packs).
Binocular vision is another thing I have a hard time seeing as a major issue. In a head-to-head battle, they are going to be pretty darn close to each other, making the judgment of distance a moot point. Also, some scientists dispute just how good rexy's depth perception was, although I personally believe it to have been quite adequate for his purposes.
Last but not least, let's not forget the size differences here. More specifically, the MASS differences. I have heard anywhere from 5 to 7 tons for an average rex and 7 to 8 for a gigo (correct me if I'm wrong here). This could give the gigo up to a 3-ton weight advantage over rex! As a former wrestler, I can tell you that even a slight weight difference can have a very big impact on the outcome of a match. The same argument could be made for gigo.
As I said before, I am not taking sides with the rex-fans or the gigo-backers, I am just posing some observations on what I've read.
from MaxR, age 17, Detroit, MI, USA; August 11, 2001

All right, time to set the record straight on the whole JP velociraptor issue. Michael Crichton (who wrote JP in 1989) based his raptors on info from an older book. In this book, the scientist/author had concluded that the Asian velocipator was the same animal as the North American deinonychus, but since velociraptor was the older name, it should take precedence. Thus, Crichton felt justified in making his raptors the size of deinonychus. This is why Grant is unearthing unnaturally large raptors in Montana, where in fact velociraptors were never found, but deinonychus were. There is no need for idle speculation on the identity of the movie animals (ie. noasaurus; utahraptor; etc). End of story.
P.S. If I sound mad, I'm sorry, because I'm really not. I'm just defending Michael Crichton and Steven Spielberg.
P.P.S. Anybody who would like to discuss dinosaur issues such as this can e-mail me at dinosaur_guy(at)hotmail.com
from MaxR, age 17, Detroit, MI, USA; August 11, 2001

"Though it may sound odd here, gigantic 70-tonne sauropods like Brachiosaurusu can possibly reach speeds of 120 KILOMETERS PER HOUR while running. If you look at the legs of fast runners, you'll realize that the longer their legs are, the faster they run due to their increased stride. If an animal like the giraffe can run up to 55 kilometers an hour with thier 2 meter legs, a Brachiosaur will easily be able to reach 120 kilometers per hour with their 5 meter legs. It's simple science!"

Before anybody gets too confused here, I'm simply demonstrating the simplistic and obviously-skewed way SOME people here present their arguments.
from Honkie Tong, age 17, ?, ?, ?; August 11, 2001

"Quick question: does anyone know where I can find a photo or two of Carnotaurus skin impressions online? I've found descriptions of them, but no actual pictures. Anyone have a link..? :)"

Sorry man, no clue here.

Though it may sound odd here, gigantic 70-tonne sauropods like Brachiosaurusu can possibly reach speeds of 120 KILOMETERS PER HOUR while running. If you look at the legs of fast runners, you'll realize that the longer their legs are, the faster they run due to their increased stride. If an animal like the giraffe can run up to 55 kilometers an hour with thier 2 meter legs, a Brachiosaur will easily be able to reach 120 kilometers per hour with their 5 meter legs. It's simple science!
from Honkie Tong, age 17, ?, ?, ?; August 11, 2001

Has anybody heard new info about the possible relationship between acrocanthosaurus and carcharodontosaurus? I know both are generally considered allosaurids, but I have recently heard that the acro may have been more closely related to the Sereno's "shark tooth." I'm wondering if scientists, going on the assumption that acro was an allosaur, may have underestimated its mass (2-3.5 tons). Any constructive response would be much appreciated.
from MaxR, age 17, Detroit, MI, USA; August 11, 2001

hay honkie draw a spinosaurus
from samy, age 10, ?, ?, ?; August 11, 2001

Everyone ignores me.Fine,I'll ignore you.
from Donovan c., age 12, ?, singapore, ?; August 11, 2001

"Ducks look very top heavy to me and by siting them, you aren't helping yourself, Ducks are no runners."

If you people would just LOOK, I was pointing out that some birds are not top heavy, and did I say that the running birds are NOT top heavy? NO. I will repeat that. NO.

"And I'm not sure what you mena by "fat", just by the look of the fossils or what?"

Well, duh, of course. Everything we know about dinosaurs is from the fossils, so if that's wrong, we are all wrong. I happened to look at the rib cage of Stan the Tyrannosaur, and the ribs were pushed out to form a very large arc, and the hip of Tyrannosaur hung very low indeed. If that isn't fat, I don't know what is.

"Jason, your points and comments are extremely simplistic and not well-thought out. It seems to me you are not really intrested in finding out the truth at all. Everytime you say something, the rex fans will simply put out all the scientific info and fact and have you trapped in a gutter. You responses in return while not childish like Sean's, are certainly lacking in good scientific fact at all. And you're making alot of assumptions and lously poor compairisms...ranging from spiders to top-heavy birds, the look of fossils and so on and so forth. I'm just a outside observer but I'm speaking up now because you scientific inapitude is just filling up this forum with crapola. Frankly, you should just refrain from posting anymore as its obvious to me that you know very little on animals or dinosuars for that matter. Please go and widen your knowledge away from the victorian era before you post again. Seeing such poor pieces of work that are your posts are an eyesore. This is not a message in any debate, I'm just saying that Jason should go learn some things. I'm not rooting for the rex fans or gig fans, just scientific correctness here. And Jason is lacking that. I mean the points he posts are unscientific and annoying in their simple-mindness while the posts of the people posting back are so well-though out and extremely scientific. Really, Jason should go and bother some Preschool kids instead of the scientists in this room. And people, you don't have to respond to such a buffon also, its not worth your time. No point giving him free lessons in biology or such, just let him fail a test, exam or something to let him learn."

Who are you to say I am lacking in scientific correctness? What would you do if a Preschool jid came in here and started throwing around unscientific things? Would you call him stupid too? You all have absolutely no right to call me stupid here. Yes that's right, STUPID. You may try to hide that behind your "scientific corrctness", but you are essentially calling me a very stupid person. It seems to me that these kinds of posts were supposed to be blocked. Here's another:

"Yeah! What crapola is Jason talking about? I've just taken at the two diagrams posted by Leonard and T-man looks a heck load more agile, stronger, and built for speed than Giganotosaurus. T-man looks mean, not fat, Giganotosaurus looks fat to me."

"Actually Jason, both T.rex and Giganotosaurus had heads that are of the same weight, and Giganotosaurus had a heavier upper body. You are actually describing how powerfully built T.rex was in your post."

And another.There goes that "actually" again...

"Un oh, if you live in Dayton, Ohio and is just back from your musuem...you seem to be describing the IMOH fossil that has the wrong legs!"

"Actually" I was visiting the Cincinnati museum. I would like to know of a museum that shows the "right" legs.

"The problem with t.rex fans,is that they see only what they want to see! T.rex may not have been as impressive as you think it is. I don't listen to dinosaur fans,I listen to the experts! Honkie Tong,you weren't around during the time of the dinosaurs,to conduct scientific research.(And who was?) (So how could you say t.rex is simply better?!) I find it hard to believe t.rex was as perfect as you make it out to be! What if t.rex wasn't smart enough to make a difference? If allosaurids couldn't beat t.rex,than the other carnivores wouldn't even stand a chance! You t.rex fans accuse me of being a jerk. Well i'm not the problem. Guys like Damean are the problem! All that guy ever does,is talk trash! (Nevermind him though.) If Jason is innocent,then why am I the bad guy?! Anyway,the mandibles of giganotosaurus are very ! large and powerfully constructed for a carnivore. When we look at the skull of giganotosaurus,there is no way it had a weak bite! Its obvious giganotosaurus could beat t.rex! (don't hide it) This is not about who bites the hardest,(Although this is something to be taken seriously.)this is about who is the dominant overall fighter! In the flesh,giganotosaurus was a very powerful carnivore! (You just have to imagine giganotosaurus alive.) Lots of modern predators have similiar advantages t.rex had. (But they aren't everything they're cracked up to be,are they?) So what makes you think t.rex was everything,it was cracked up to be?! T.rex was not hands down the best! Can we get off this debate? (its getting nowhere)"

Thank you for pointing that out, Sean. If thanking Sean here is a crime on this site, then I'm glad to do it.

"Recently, I saw a footage--the scene is an African savannah showing a gentle river, a sort of a water buffalo, few feet from it, and 10 lions trying to kill it. The funny thing is, the entire lion pack tried to kill it for about a few minutes but they weren't able to do it. They caused a lot of puncture to the animal in the legs, slowing it down but that didn't kill it. It just slowed it down."

Well, the reason the lions couldn't kill it was the lions were inexperienced and didn't know the proper way to kill or didn't know that lions are just not suited to kill a water buffalo. Or maybe they were desperate and acted rashly. If you didn't catch those reasons while watching the footage, you are just as stupid as I supposedly am.

One more thing. Why are the T.rex fans always right? Here's a post saying just that:

"Wrong theory to support. Not only do we have direct evidence of Tyrannosaurus hunting, virtually nobody except unbalanced anti-Tyrannosaurus fans agree with this theory."

Unbalanced? Why are us non T.rex fans unbalanced?

Well, that's it. Now can we move on? Let's talk about plant-eaters for once...
from Jason, age 13, Dayton, Ohio, USA; August 11, 2001

Thanks for posting the metatarsal paper. If Arctometatarsalia is polyphyletic, what's the alternative? This is my current vision of maniraptor evolution:

Maniraptora
|--+
|..|--Deinonychosauria
|..`--Avialae
|......|--Megaraptor, etc.
|......`--Aves
|--+
|..|--Avimimus
|..Arctometatarsalia
|..|--Tyrannosauroidea
|..`--Bullatosauria
|.....|--Troodontidae
|.....`--Ornithomimosauria
`--+
...|--Oviraptorosauria
...`--Segnosauria
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; August 11, 2001

(*Finally starts to type after managing to close open jaw)

Honkie Tong Ka Fong Francis Ong Su Ka, what have you done!!? That's the most detailed, concise and convincing post on Tyrannosaur movement (at least to the people who understand it). I have finally understood how and why Tyrannosaurids would have been much faster than any Allosaurid, no matter the size. And that's because of the advanced special design of the arctometatarsalian leg. Giganotosaurus' legs was moving on the primitive design, and the law of biomechnics dictates that Tyrannosaurids would be much faster.

Actually, I think Jason's description of T.rex having clunkly legs is not entirely out of the way. Barring his own prejudices in making such statements, at such large sizes, the gracile limb proportions will appear bulky over the non-gracile ones. But the more gracile animal would be faster and more agile. And not to mention T.rex had the mighty arctometatarsalian leg design!

Hmm Honkie, I think you just redefined overkill here. Even before that coup'de gras you posted, we were already flogging a dead horse in relation to Tyrannosaurus speed and agility.

Keep it up!
from Leonard, age 14, ?, ?, ?; August 11, 2001

Actually, I used to believe in a fight, Giganotosaurus would have an equal chance of beating T.Rex. But after reading the posts here, and with the T.Rex fans putting up really good points on the differences between Giganotosaurus and T.Rex, I realized these two animals were anything but equal.
from ?, age ?, ?, ?, ?; August 11, 2001

Quick question: does anyone know where I can find a photo or two of Carnotaurus skin impressions online? I've found descriptions of them, but no actual pictures. Anyone have a link..? :)
from Nocturne, age 16, ?, ?, ?; August 11, 2001

"Yes, the site also compares the speculative dinosaurs to animals like primates, which would obviously never have evolved if the K-T asteroid event never occurred..."

But what about Purgatorius? (see http://www.cmnh.org/fun/dinosaur-archive/1995May/0282.html) I'm not sure why primates couldn't exist in a continued Mesozoic, if they kept to the trees and didn't compete with dinosaurs.
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; August 11, 2001

BBD started insulting people.
from DW, age ?, ?, ?, ?; July 4, 2001

Hmm...Jason, you do seem to have made quite a bit of comments on the locomotion of Tyrannosaurus rex, but I have to point out that your overall understanding of Tyrannosaurid or dinosaur locomotion is quite limited. For instance, you missed out entirly the fact that Tyrannosaurus had something known as the arctometatarsalian pes of the metatarsus!

Did you get me?

No, then you must have lost me already. I'll explain. But this had a very great effect on what you currently believe, and its the reason why Tyrannosaurids would have been much faster than Giganotosaurus. But then again, I don't think you read through the papers (the detailed ones) published by paleontologists or have a basic understanding of physics-based animal locomotion. I shall now expalin myself:

A Report on the Arctometatarsalian Pes, The Implications and Consequences of the The Arctometatarsalian Place: Tyrannosaurs on Tip-toe.

In 1995, Tom Holtz published a now classic paper: "The arctometatarsalian pes, an unusual structure of the metatarsus of Cretaceous Theropoda." (Holtz (1995)) [1]. In this paper, Holtz described in some detail a peculiar arrangement of the metatarsals -- the three foot bones that attach to the ankle joint -- in tyrannosaurids, ornithomimids and various other theropod dinosaurs from the late Cretaceous of Asia and North America. This essay looks back at that article with the benefit of hindsight. That is, the aspects of the paper discussed here are not always matters that could have been seen when it was published. In most respects, this paper has held up extremely well. However, it is useful to assess the present status of the ideas and conclusions for which this paper is still so often cited.

Theropods functionally have three digits on their feet. The "arctometatarsalian condition" describes a special arrangement of the foot in which metatarsals ("Mts") II and IV make contact at the joint with the leg bones, and Mt III is reduced to a splint, or disappears altogether at the same level. See Figure 1. But why does anyone care about the feet of theropods? There are two main reasons. The first is phylogenetic. The relationships of the advanced theropods were, and remain, very unclear. The arctometatarsalian condition initially seemed to be such a strange and unique arrangement that it could be used to answer a good many questions about the family tree of late Cretaceous theropods. Second, the speed and agility of dinosaurs is still a contentious issue. Special structures of the feet might give us a handle on how fast and how active they may have been.

Holtz's paper is, roughly speaking, addressed to three corresponding points. First, he describes the arctometatarsalian foot and presents statistical data to show how the properties of this arrangement are genuinely different from the plesiomorphic (underived or primitive) condition. Second, these conclusions are discussed in light of an earlier assertion (Holtz (1994)) that the Arctometatarsalia -- the theropods sharing this condition -- formed a distinct, related group of dinosaurs. This point is not taken up in much detail in this paper, since Holtz had discussed it elsewhere. Third, Holtz discusses the possibility that the arctometatarsalian foot represents a biomechanical improvement reflecting a more active, fast-moving lifestyle than could be achieved with old-fashioned Jurassic models.

II. Standing Toe to Toe: the Arctometatarsalian Condition

In the generalized theropod leg. The metatarsals are the "foot bones" which, in a bipedal human, would articulate with the ankle joint. However, the equally bipedal theropod dinosaurs had nothing one could call a heel. Bipedal dinosaurs were digitigrade. That is, they walked on their toes. The metatarsals attached directly to the distal tarsals, the astragalus and calcaneum at the distal end of the tibia and fibula. The metatarsals thus formed the important physical link between the weight - bearing surfaces of the phalanges (toe bones) and the leg bones that balanced that weight. The tibia, fibula, and distal tarsals are referred to collectively as the epipodiale (or, sometimes, epipodium). The metatarsals and phalanges are, collectively, the pes.

The primitive condition found, for example, in the Jurassic Allosaurus. In these dinosaurs, the metatarsals were three roughly equal bones. In arctometatarsalian, late Cretaceous forms, such as Tyrannosaurus, the configuration is quite different. Here, Mts II and IV actually lie next to each other proximally, where they contact the distal tarsals. The upper part of Mt III lies behind Mts II and IV. However, Mt III is not merely "covered" by Mts II and IV when viewed from the front. Metatarsal III is actually reduced to a splint as it approaches the epipodiale. In some cases, Mt III may disappear altogether.

In the middle section of the arctometatarsalian foot, Mt III is small and flattened between the other metatarsals. The inner faces of Mts II and IV may also be bent in such a way that Mt III is locked into position between the two larger bones on each side. This variation occurs, for example, in Tyrannosaurus. In other cases, (Avimimus), Mts II and IV are fused together at the top, which also has the effect of locking Mt III into place.

Finally, the lower, distal section of the arctometatarsalian foot is superficially similar to the primitive foot. Metatarsal III lies in front of Mts II and IV and extends more or less straight out in front of the leg. In this way, the foot remains three-toed. However the middle toe no longer connects directly with the ankle. Instead, it connects with the two outer toes, through Mts II and IV. In addition, Mt II is almost triangular in cross-section, and the inner edges of Mts II and IV have a smooth, beveled surface on which two of the faces of the triangle rest.

Most researchers would have been satisfied with this type of general description. However, Holtz went further -- much further. He created a database of leg measurements from dozens of theropod fossils of all kinds, in an effort to put some quantitative rigor behind the usual descriptive prose. In a way, the database itself may be the most lasting accomplishment of his paper. Vertebrate paleontology has long been dominated by elaborate descriptive works on single specimens. Beginning in the mid - 1980's, phylogenetic taxonomy introduced statistical and computer-based methods for comparative analysis of numerous specimens of different species. This type of data is used to create a character matrix for mathematically estimating the most probable evolutionary tree connecting the specimens. Holtz had previously worked, and continues to work, in this area. In his 1995 paper, he applies this character matrix technique back onto the traditional business of descriptive paleontology, a subtle reversal of method which may have interesting long-term implications.

Using this character matrix, Holtz argued that the arctometatarsalian condition is a distinct and separate arrangement from the primitive, Allosaurus-style foot. This is an important prerequisite to any phylogenetic discussion of the condition. If the arctometatarsus were simply one end of a continuum of foot arrangements, it would be hard to draw any conclusions about evolutionary relationships. Over the one hundred million years which separate Allosaurus from Tyrannosaurus, it is reasonable to expect that continuously variable characteristics will wander back and forth with some frequency, based on local selctive pressures or simply random genetic drift. So, for example, overall body size, tail length, and even arm length are not very useful in tracing such long-term evolutionary movements. The problem is not just theoretical. A number of theropod dinosaurs have feet which might be viewed as intermediate between the primitive and arctometatarsalian states. For example, many theropods have feet with metatarsal III lying somewhat anterior to its neighbors, or even somewhat reduced near the ankle joint.

In order to determine whether the arctometatarsus was just "more of the same" or a really new arrangement, Holtz graphed a number of different leg measurements against each other for arctometatarsalian and primitive theropods. He calculated the equations for the lines which best fit each distribution and tested to see if the lines were statistically different. This method should not only reveal whether the arctometatarsus was in fact a qualitatively unique character, but how it affected (or, more exactly, was correlated with) the overall shape and mechanics of the leg in each case.

As expected, Holtz found that the lines describing the relationships between leg measurements were significantly different between the primitive and arctometatarsalian groups. Metatarsals II and IV are flatter in arctometatarsalian species. Importantly, arctometatarsalian theropods had longer legs than primitive theropods of the same size. At least in mammals, longer leg length is correlated with speed, as the animal gets more distance with each stride. The foot itself was thinner, lighter and more gracile. Since the foot is swung forward at the distal end of the leg, it must be moved further than any other part of the body in running. Therefore, a small weight reduction in the foot translates into both a large energy savings and greater speed. What is more, the longer the leg, the more difference this makes. Thus, Holtz's statistics indicated that the arctometatarsalian theropods were significantly different from the Jurassic models, and may have been faster and more energy-efficient in motion.

III. Footing the Bill: Phylogenetic Consequences

Prior to the 1995 paper, Holtz had argued that the arctometatarsalian condition was also a hallmark of a family of dinosaurs, which he called the Arctometatarsalia after their most distinctive feature. In fact, he had originally defined the Arctometatarsalia as the first theropod to acquire the arctometatarsalian condition, and all of its descendants. Holtz felt that the Arctometatarsalia were a clade: that is, a single organism and all of its descendants. As originally proposed, Holtz suggested that this group included at least the Tyrannosauridae, Ornithomosauria, Troodontidae, Avimimus and Elmisauridae.

The name was certainly a linguistically appropriate one. The term "arctometatarsalian" was originally derived from arcere, meaning to close up, confine, or lock away.[2] However, Latin writers also used the word arctous to mean "northern."[3] As Holtz points out, the arctometatarsalian foot is in fact a northern foot. That is, it is identified almost exclusively with theropods from the late Cretaceous of Asiamerica, the present North America and eastern Asia.

However, it is normally not considered good practice to define a clade in terms of a characteristic. If additional information suggests that the characteristic evolved more than once, the definition becomes impossible to use since it no longer defines a clade. For example, if the arctometatarsalian foot evolved twice, then the last common ancestor of all arctometatarsalian dinosaurs would not have the defining characteristic. Such a group is said to be "polyphyletic" and is not a valid clade.

As matters turned out, this is exactly what happened. In the 1995 paper, Holtz had already concluded that the arctometatarsalian foot might have evolved more than once. In a later paper (Holtz (1996)), he amended the definition of the group to "all theropods more closely related to Ornithomimus than to birds." [fn 4] In this analysis Holtz hypothesized that the group contained only Ornithomimosauria, Tyrannosauridae and Troodontidae. Figure 4. More recent work by Sereno (1999), among others, suggests that troodonts are much more closely related to birds. Sereno asserts that even the tyrannosaurids are more closely related to birds than to ornithomimids. If so, "Arctometatarsalia" is simply another name for the Ornithomimosauria. See Figure 5.

Few taxonomists would be bold enough to claim that the relationships of the advanced Theropods are settled. In particular, the position of the Tyrannosaurs is still unclear. The Arctometatarsalia may well describe a clade containing Tyrannosaurus as well as Ornithomimus and its close relatives.

Still, there is little doubt that the original, broad concept of the Arctometatarsalia has itself been squeezed down. What, then, happened to the significant differences Holtz found between the arctometatarsalian and primitive theropods?

The answer may lie in the way the statistical analysis was performed. For the most part, Holtz takes the measurements from the arctometatarsalian species and plots the data pair-wise, i.e., he plots it two variables at a time. He calculates the line which best fits this data. He then repeats this process for the data from primitive theropods. Finally, tests to see whether the two lines are statistically different in position and slope.

This method has several logical limitations. First, it assumes that the arctometatarsalian specimens are a group, and asks whether that group is different from other theropods. It does not test whether the existence of the arctometatarsalian condition is necessarily the best way to split the sample population of theropods. Thus, the analysis cannot be used to draw phylogenetic conclusions, nor does Holtz attempt to do so. In fact, if the data had been used in an attempt to draw a "natural" dividing line, Avimimus and the elmisaurids might well have fallen away from the other arctometatarsalian forms. [fn 6]

Second, and perhaps more interestingly, Holtz uses a form of linear regression. However, there is no clear indication that the best fit is, in fact, a straight line. Eye-ball estimates should not be confused with rigorous number-crunching, but there is at least a visual hint that the data for arctometatarsalian and primitive forms would converge at large size if the data were fitted without the constraint of linearity. The limb proportions of small arctometatarsalian dinosaurs are dramatically different from other small theropods. The difference in proportions between a large Allosaurus and a Tyrannosaurus is, at least, not quite so obvious.

Finally, the data on arctometatarsalian dinosaurs is dominated by ornithomimids (29 specimens) and tyrannosaurids (37 specimens). Troodonts, elmisaurids and Avimimus together are represented by only 8 specimens, and only 3 of these were complete enough to be included in most of the calculations. As a result, it is not possible to draw firm conclusions about these groups. What is impressive is that, despite the vast difference in size and form, both among the ornithomimids and between them and the tyrannosaurids, the data for these groups do tend to form a neat, if not always linear, pattern.

Athlete's Foot: the Biomechanics of the Arctometatarsalian Condition

Holtz's biomechanical treatment of the arctometatarsalian foot is interesting and convincing. In general, he makes two points. First, he argues that the arctometatarsalian foot could not be used as a device for spreading force over time. Instead, he argues that the specialization served to direct the forces in space. He then uses a variety of assumptions to calculate the stresses on the bones of the foot in moderately fast motion and finds that these forces were not significantly greater in arctometatarsalian feet, even though the leg was both longer and more slender than underived feet. Thus the arctometatarsalian foot represented a truly improved design: greater speed at no additional energy cost.

Previous authors had suggested that the arctometatarsalian foot worked with "snap ligaments" analogous to those of some modern ungulates. That is, they proposed that Mt III was either (a) rotated out of the plane of Mts II and IV at mid-step or (b) pushed upwards relative to Mts II and IV. In either case, the ground force exerted at mid-step would go into stretching the ligaments which held Mt III to the rest of the foot. These ligaments would then snap back and help lift the leg off the ground for the next step. Holtz believes that this is unlikely because the complicated surfaces of metatarsal III would not allow it to move significantly relative to II and IV, either vertically or by rotation. He also points out that the proximal portions of the metatarsus in Elmisaurus and Avimimus are at partially fused, making any relative motion impossible.

Rather than spreading force over time, Holtz bases his model on the idea that the arctometatarsus served to redirect forces in space. Specifically, Holtz asserts that the most likely function of the wedge-shaped distal portion of Mt III was to distribute the force experienced by Mt III laterally, onto the shafts of Mts II and IV. Fig. 6. Since Mts II and IV are flattened, they are well-suited to withstand lateral forces -- forces acting across the long axis of the ellipse. He notes that advanced theropods also have well developed condyles at the distal ends of the distal tarsals -- at the base of the astragalus and calcaneum. Thus, Mts II and IV could direct force more efficiently and more sensitively to the upper leg than Mt III -- which terminates between the astragalus and the calcaneum.

Holtz provides a detailed quantitative model based on similar studies of living animals. It is not clear whether the mechanics of theropod locomotion are sufficiently similar to the model animals to place much faith in his detailed results. However, this does not appear to have been the intent. Rather, the model shows that the stresses placed on the bones of the arctometatarsalian foot are similar to those placed on the bones of underived theropod feet and that the numbers are within the range which bones can be expected to tolerate well.

These observations have held up well. As Holtz emphasizes, nothing in the study compels any conclusions about the absolute speed of advanced predatory dinosaurs. What the study does justify are the conclusions that (1) arctometatarsalian dinosaurs were probably faster than their Jurassic cousins and (2) they had evolved a very special adaptation for movement which required some degree of speed. The inescapable conclusion is that predatory dinosaurs experienced some fairly significant selective pressure for increased speed -- that speed was important to their mode of living. We cannot conclude from Holtz's work that arctometatarsalian theropods had any particular speed or activity level. However, his paper provides a firm foundation for the conclusion that Cretaceous theropods used speed, probably over substantial distances, for hunting, stalking or some other significant purpose.

I hope you now understand Jason. I thought I should really go DEEP into the biomechanics on how the kimbs of Tyrannosauria worked and why they would have been extremely agile and speedy.

Also check out the Godzilla report by Honkie Tong
from Honkie Tong, age 17, ?, ?, ?; August 11, 2001