I think you guys are getting way too wrapped up in this Gigantosaurus v Tyrannosaurus thing. If you want my opinion, I think a Tyrannosaurus would win bigtime. But I need to know the answer to a question about a possible relative of Gigantosaurus. Do you think Allosaurus was the dominant predator of it's day?
from russell p, age ?, seattle, wa, usa; January 31, 2001

What's going on? What bad news?
from Leonard, age 13, ?, ?, ?; January 31, 2001

It's not your fault Bill, it just so happened that Andrea has to fall sick now. Well, it's kinda sad, for their concert was my highlight of the year. But I do hope Andrea gets better.

Anyway, I hope you do have a fun time at your In Blue concert.
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 31, 2001

wwwwwwwwwwwww
aaaaaaaaaa
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
uuuuuuuuuu
pppppppppp
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt-
rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
eeeeeeeeeeeeeee
xxxxxxxxxxxx

from Al.b, age 11, santa monica, California, United States; January 31, 2001

More JP3 info...its almost confirmed that there will be a Tyrannosaur-Spinosaur battle...the raptors will have feathers...possible aviary scenes with pteranodons...Spinosaur is WAY too big, its arms alone are "raptor sized" says a website, and we all know how big JP raptors are...I found it disturbing how many people are bashing T-Rex in the JP3 forums and praising a new falsified Spinosaur...hmmmmmm....>:-(
from Sauron, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 31, 2001

Here's a bigger picture of the new species:

http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/press/images/dinobody_big.jpg

And here's a different article, with information about how it is related to other theropods (its an abelisauroid):

http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/press/01/pr0103.htm

>From Thomas R. Holtz Jr.-

http://www.cmnh.org/fun/dinosaur-archive/2001Jan/msg00654.html
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 31, 2001

Just before any fighting breaks out here, I'd like to say that I'm not trying to belittle you or something like that Monstarr. I don't contest what you say for the fun of it, or that it sheds a negative light on what I prefer. And indeed, some of your ideas have been bang on the money, but I'm afraid I have to disagree on your verdict on Giganotosaurus vs. Tyrannosaurus.
from Josh, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 31, 2001

To Honkie,

Bad News
Honkie, I've heard what happened, and I'm so sorry. I know this must be really bad news for you, and a great chance missed. I know it would have stunk if I was in your place, and I know how much all this means to you. But look on the bright side, they might come back to Singapore later in the year or prehaps next year. Look, I know that due to concert responsibilities here in the US, they have cancelled the Asia tour, so I feel kinda guilty about all this.

Anyway, I do hope above all this that Andrea gets better. They might even put in a greater and better preformance for you people to make up for this sad incident, so don't get too down by this!

Best wishes,

Billy Macdraw
from Billy Macdraw, age 18, ?, ?, ?; January 31, 2001

Hey! I'm not extremist! I can't help it if your points are easy to "kill".

You do seem pretty sure that Rigby's rex is not a Tyrannosaurus Rex do you? Well, Jack Horner (who thinks that Rigby's rex is also a T.Rex) is currently working on five new confirmed T.Rexes found near Rigby's rex that are similar in size to Rigby's more famous find. These specimens are a good lot more intact and complete than Rigby's specimen.

Now, having established that Horner's finds are confirmed T.Rexes, and that they are similar in size to Rigby's, I think it points pretty strongly towards Rigby's rex being a Tyrannosaurus Rex Osborn. Abbet, a very big one.

Now, before I get accused of being a extremist (note sarcasm), I must make it claer that I myself though that Rigby's rex was of a different/ and new species of Tyrannosaurus. Well, I actually defended the case for Rigby's rex NOT being a Tyrannosaurus Rex once, but now I'm convinced I was wrong. Well, in case you might mention that Rigby's rex has larger forearms, I'm afraid these rumours were dismissed not too long ago. So be paleontologically responsible (note sarcasm) and stop spreading the misconception that there is anything solid to confirm that Rigby's rex is anything but a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Besides, the idea of Rigby's rex being something new was accidently cooked up by the media. When they herd Rigby called his find "Tyrannosaurus Imperator", they mistook it for the name of a new species. I'm afraid Tyrannosaurus Imperator is about as real as brontosaurus.

While this may seem contradictory and confusing (note sarcasm again) to you, my bigger sister, who is a biology student, tells me that the occurances of super-XL T.Rexes in that certain area might be due to external enviromental conditions in that time, that allowed the local Tyrannosaurus to get to their size. This is consistent with the occurances of undersized T.Rexes in another area, and "normal" sized T.Rexes in another area. This run parallel to what we know in modern nature, where the Lions living in a certain crater place in Africa (I forgot the name) are significantly larger than the adverage of their speices due to some external reason we have yet to understand. It's extremely likely this is what happened to the Tyrannosaurus Rex Osborns Rigby and Horner found.

About the Giganotosaurus vs. T.Rex fight, though I would like to carry it on, I find it ather silly, not to mention it has been the cause of many ugly incidents here (note sacrasm). Well, firstly, these two never met and it would be humanistic to pit them together. In short, making them fight is not realisitc. But given his better senses, speed, agility, damage pontential and survibability, I suppose T.Rex greatly exceed Giganotosaurus in hunting effectivness. If push came to shove, I think it's highly likely that T.Rex would win with little effort. While this may seem biased and onesided, I'm just lookinga t it logically. Hey, the Tyrannosaurids did put the carnosaurs in the north otta a job, didn't they?
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 31, 2001

Tyrannosaurus vs. Giganotosaurus

Before we go any further, we must look at what are the differences between the dinosaurs that will play a part in this battle:

Giganotosaurus is no longer enjoys a size advantage over T.Rex as far as current figures go. Giganotosaurus had long, slender, almost sissorlike jaws lined with many, delta-shaped teeth. This animal probally hunted on sauropods many times their size by hounding it and biting it until it finally falls (at least that's what most people say). But given the slender nature of his skull, Giganotosaurus is not a in-your-face, head on attacker. Giganotosaurus relyed on multiple bites to bleed out and kill its prey, an age old carnosaur tradition.

T.Rex possesed a shorter, and stouter skull that weighted about the same as Giganotosaurus. It enjoys certain advantages over the Giganotosaurus skull by being structurally stronger. The base of the skull is also laterally widened as a space for mucsle to fill, giving it a very powerful bite indeed. It's immediately apparent that a Tyrannosaurus uses the "one bite, one kill" method on its prey. As opposed to Giganotosaurus, T.Rex had less teeth, but these teeth were bigger and stronger and could wistand the stresses of breaking bone in an attack. Unlike Giganotosaurus, T.Rex relyed on using one, massive bite to disable its prey and hopefully kill it. This different method of killing will play a big part later. Let's start now.

Erm, no offense Monstarr, but don't you find your points a little shallow? I don't really think your point about T.Rex having to get closer to bite is a good one. I mean how much advantage can one and a half feet of extra snout give Giganotosaurus?? And once T.Rex gives Giganotosaurus one of his massive bites, the game is over, open terran or forest. Head on, one to one, T.Rex is certainly far meaner and tougher than Giganotosaurus. In fact, I think he can literally overpower the rival Giganotosaurus.

Given Giganotosaurus weaker bite, he would have to work harder to wound T.Rex fatally, which is hard, given our knowledge about how much "Caudron-Bornish" pounding T.Rex can take. On the other hand, given T.Rex can bite up to three times harder and remove more material at the same time, coupled with his superior super-durable teeth, I can picture him snapping Giganotosaurus' neck like a twig in a single bite. In fact, the only dinosaur I can think of which can resist a bite to the neck by a Tyrannosaurus is an Ankylosaurus and another Tyrannosaurus, nothing else. So what if Giganotosaurus had a slightly longer snout? I would gladly trade a long skull in for the incredible damage potential of a compact and powerful "nutcracker" skull in a fight like that. Besides, if Giganotosaurus tried to use his marginal advantage in skull length to bite T.Rex first, wouldn't T.Rex try to bite his head? Given how much weaker a Giganotosaurus skull is, and how powerful a Tyrannosaurus bite is! , that could be fatal or at least, a debilitating injury.

In the same way, I can't picture Giganotosaurus doing the same back to him. Even if Giganotosaurus got off a few bites at the tougher rex, they were not likely to be debilitating injuries, unless an eye was gouged or a major artery hit. T.Rex has protected eyes and artery, though. Conversely, it's easy to see T.Rex hitting a mojor artery with a single of his smash-mouth bites.

Also, I'm not sure facing a bigger foe will cause T.Rex to lose his nerve for two reasons. Firstly, Giganotosaurus did not enjoy a good size advantage and may have been smaller (if we're talking the Horner-rexes here), secondly, given T.Rex is an aggressive and intelligent predator capable taking down prey that outmasses him, (ie, Triceratops)I'm just not sure if your ideas hold a lot of water at all.

And that's why I say that the T.Rex would win. T.Rex was designed, like I said before, to take out big animals QUICKLY with its mouth. And that's what it would do to the Giganotosaurus. Ability and weapons matter here, not size, and the T. rex has the advantage in both areas

So that's my verdict, T. rex with the win!
from Lillian T., age 14, ?, ?, ?; January 31, 2001

Winged dinosaurs? Seagoing dinosaurs? ABC news really dosen't know its dinosaurs! Tsk Tsk Tsk. Isn't it's supposed to be a world-class news agency?
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 31, 2001

Hey, keep off the personal letdowns will ya? Look at it logically, a Tyrannosaur has too many obvious and strategic advantages over a Giganotosaurus to even have a fair fight. Yes, I'm no extremist, but I certainly do think Giggy is going to get his butt seriously and painfully kicked in any situtation. While Giggy was simply a very simple (and oversized) version of Allosaurus, Tyrannosaurus was an animal built to kill rapidly and by sheer brute force, serious stuff.

Besides, peppering your speech with thinly veiled personal attacks to the Tyrannosaur fans hardly makes your case any stonger, sorry. I've known these people for quite long, and they are anything but extremists. I'll call them "apologitics", they defend T.Rex with logic and science, and they do it well. In fact, I have become a bigger fan of T.Rex ever since I met them. I'm seriously convinced that Tyrannosaurus was possibly the deadliest land carnivore ever.

Besides, I don't get it, how does having a slightly longer skull help to keep T.Rex at bay??? I will understand big and strong arms or something, but toothy longer snouts? That's pretty weak. I could argue a Jackal can win over a similar-sized Rotwellier as it has a longer ans toothier snout, but I know this is not true. Having a superior bite, faster reflexes, higher agility and damage tolerance are the real factors here, all of which Tyrannosaurus is superior to against Giganotosaurus.
from Leonard, age 12, ?, ?, ?; January 31, 2001

What do you mean by "not getting close"? "Giggy's" skull was about a foot longer than Tyrannosaurus. Unless he had a super long neck or something, I don't see him having any significant long-range advantage over T.Rex. I'm also not convinced Giganotosaurus would have deterred Tyrannosaurus a lot, given he only has a slight weight advantage over big Tee. Once again, noting that T.Rex is faster and tougher than Giganotosaurus, and factoring his superior bite force, I figure he'll win. Though it will be a bad thing if Giggy bites Tyrannosaurus(but hardly fatal), I figure there would be more serious consequences if T.Rex bit Giganotosaurus, and that's my main reason he would win.
from Josh, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 31, 2001

Un un, Holtz has warned us against spereading the rumour that Rigby's rex is a totally new species. As of yet, there is nothing suggesting that it is anything else than a very big Tyrannosaurus Rex. What would the enviroment have to do with the fight anyway?? T.Rex lived in a dense forest enviroment too.
from Josh, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 31, 2001

You're right Brad, but Triceratops must have been most likely heavier and less agile than Tyrannosaurus. I don't suppose Triceratops stood too much of a chance on its own though, unless it had some form of social behaviour to allow mutal protection. While it's very easy for T.Rex to attack a single Triceratops while avoiding its horns, I would see it much harder for it to do so when there are a few more Triceratops around, all facing him with their weaponary. Triceratops was probally a team-player. But I do find fault in the statement that Triceratops could hold itself against T.Rex as well an Ankylosaur, it just dosen't make sense.

So did Triceratops actually deter T.Rex from attacking? Well, I guess so we find twice the number of bite marks on defenceless "duckbills" than we do on the more "dangerous" Triceratops, and none at all on the mostly-invincible Ankylosaur. (Though some Ankylosaurs have been found tipped over onto their backs...predation?) Given the stats, I suppose T.Rex did classify Trieratops under the hard-to-kill section and would have gone for easier prey, if there was any around. But then again, even 1 meter horns can't hope to deter a Tyrannosaurus if a Triceratops is the only target in the area, and the predator is hungry....
from Josh, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 31, 2001

Hmm, looks like a fishing dinosaur... probally good at snaring small, skittish prey too.
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 31, 2001

Now, that's an odd animal, they made a joke about it in the Singaporean newspapers...

Oh yes, Bill, #Dinosaurs is down, meet you in the alternate room.
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 31, 2001

Seeing that everybody is a extremists and will accept anything to put T.rex higher on the throne kinda makes me edgy. Anyway, it does depend on the environment of who would win. In a thick, forest like environment, Giganotosaurus would win, in a open wide habitat, T.rex would. All it is, they both had the same niche, and a very similar build, save a few adaptations to better equip them for their habitat. Look at it logically, in a fight, T.rex would have to get close, while Giganoto wouldnt. GIga had the longer snout, more toothy jaws making it easier to get a quick nasty bite and proportionally, a lighter head. Besides, being just animals, the T.rex would lose his nerve. Now these big boys like Rigby's got are something else, not the familiar T.rex.
from Monstarr, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 31, 2001

Story and Illustration of the New Dinosaur, Masiakasaurus:

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/DailyNews/dinosaur_knopfler010124.html

Dinosaur Reamins Found in Denmark:

http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/scandinavia/11/22/denmark.dinosaur/index.html
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 30, 2001

New dinosaur! New dinosaur!
It's a weird one too.

http://dinosauricon.com/genera/masiakasaurus.html
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 30, 2001

Weight estimates for Triceratops ae among the most variable among dinsaurs, and I don't trust any. "6 to 12 tons" doesn't really mean much.
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 30, 2001

Spinosaurus had a speical suer-claw? How come I didn't know that? I wasn't aware of any superclaw on Spinosaurus. I've heard the restoration of the hands were complete and not missing, or were they?
from Josh, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 30, 2001

Of course, I figure on a one on one, Triceratops is going to have a lot of trouble defending himself from T.Rex, given he weights about 3 tons more and is therefore much slower and less agile. But I don't think we should at Triceratops that way, as T.Rex was specialized to hunt animals such as Triceratops and was very good at doing so indeed, not that Triceratops is a lousy dinosaur or something.
from Josh, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 30, 2001

"Ahem" Given Spinosaurus is a fishing dino, we'd think he'll have some kind of super claw or something, but as of yet, we don't have any evidence yet, but my verdict is, "not likely".
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 30, 2001

I think Triceratops is the coolest dinosaur in the world.
from SLS, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 30, 2001

Spinosaurus didn't have a baryonychid-like super-claw? I didn't know that before. Of course, baryonychids were unknown when the first Spinosaurus skeleton was mounted, so the hands may have been incorrectly restored. Remember, it was a partial skeleton they found, and some parts would have been based on other large meat-eaters (most likely Megalosaurus, Allosaurus, or perhaps Tyrannosaurus).

Did Spinosaurus have three fingers or four? I've always wanted to know that.

Your point about Triceratops horns is also very interesting. They would only encourage attackes to the side or hip, and without forward facing eyes, Triceratops wouldn't have been able to run and plunge them into the belly of a tyrannosaur with great accuracy. I still think Triceratops had a better chance against Tyrannosaurus than Spinosaurus did.
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 30, 2001

Velociraptors Are the best dinos!
from DemonBoy, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 30, 2001

Well, most of what Veloci says is pretty much incorrect, save for the later part of his post.
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 30, 2001

HAHAHHA, Velociraptors rock, thay are better than T-Rex, but I'm quite sure T-Rex is better than any ol' spino. That's all, raptors rock, bye!
from Veloci, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 30, 2001

One more thing (I better stop saying that!), I not sure what you mean, but I don't think Tyrannosaurus looks "compressed". Spinosaurus is an extreme case of lateral "compression", not Tyrannosaurus. In fact, I think Tyrannosaurus is strongly built and is anything but "compressed"! Just look at the stout legs, wide skull, thick neck, and barrel chest! Prehaps Monstarr must know something about the deeper meaning of "compressed" that I don't.

I must say once again, I am NOT a Tyrannosaur fan, but I will jump in if I think somebody is putting up inaccucrate information.
from Joseph, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 30, 2001

Besides, I don't see how Giganotosaururs could have been equal to T.rex in killing ability, given both dinosaurs relyed on biting to kill (both had puny arms), but T.rex bit much harder, about 10,000-12,000 newtons, as compaired to a Giganotosaurus bite, which is estimated at 3,000-5,000 newtons. That means for every one bite T.rex gives, Giganotosaururs has to bite twice to be break even. Unless I see any special adaptions for Giganotosaurus biting faster, I don't see how it could be equal in killing ability. Not to mention, T.Rex could see better, hear better and smell better, making it fqar more effective a hunter than Giganotosaurus. I may not like T.Rex, but I respect him as a extremely deadly dinosaur. Monstarr, on the other hand, seems to harbour some form of resentment against T.rex, but just because he's popular? It's not a good reaosn to bash a dino. T.rex certainly deserved it's fame, and I respect him for that, though I prefer the raptor! s. I find no fault with the Tyrannosaur, it's one of the best dinosaur designs around.

*Bite estimates came from the expert in my musuem.
from Jospeh, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 30, 2001

Besides, I don't see how Giganotosaururs could have been equal to T.rex in killing ability, given both dinosaurs relyed on biting to kill (both had puny arms), but T.rex bit much harder, about 10,000-12,000 newtons, as compaired to a Giganotosaurus bite, which is estimated at 3,000-5,000 newtons. That means for every one bite T.rex gives, Giganotosaururs has to bite twice to be break even. Unless I see any special adaptions for Giganotosaurus biting faster, I don't see how it could be equal in killing ability. Not to mention, T.Rex could see better, hear better and smell better, making it fqar more effective a hunter than Giganotosaurus. I may not like T.Rex, but I respect him as a extremely deadly dinosaur. Monstarr, on the other hand, seems to harbour some form of resentment against T.rex, but just because he's popular? It's not a good reaosn to bash a dino. T.rex certainly deserved it's fame, and I respect him for that, though I prefer the raptors. I find no fault with the Tyrannosaur, it's one of the best dinosaur designs around.

*Bite estimates came from the expert in my musuem.
from Jospeh, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 30, 2001

Hi guys, I backkkkkkkkk!

I've been following this JP3 thing and must admit one thing: though I like Spinosaurus better than T.rex, I must admit Spinosaururs is a pretty weak candidate for the new dinosaur star of the movie. Too many things just don't follow through to give Spinosaurus its reputation in the upcoming movie. Giganotosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus would have filled Spinosaurus' role better and with greater realism. But speaking candidly, I still think T.Rex would have wupped their arses.

Now, T.rex is not my favourite dinosaur, but I am still forced to hand of kudos to his design, it's unquestionabily one of the best there is around.

To understand why I support T.rex even though I don't like him the best, you must understand the bite: The bite is the most effective way of dealing damage to a target in the natural world. In fact, it has been so sucessful that virtually all predators (except man) employ the bite as their pirmary form of offense. Biting produces far more damage than any form of kicking and slashing can hope to offer. To be the meanest, baddest carnivore around, you don't have to be the largest, you jsut have to bite the hardest.

And that's why Tyrannosaururs gets my pick for the deadilest dinosaur. If you look at Tyrannosaururs, you'll realize that size is secondary to the dinosaur. In fact, the reason it got so big was mainly to get the size required to house the muscles to get the strongest bite. It wasn't the size causing the bite, it was the bite causing the size. Tyrannosaurus kept getting bigger and bigger because they kept investing in getting a deadiler and deadiler bite.

In contrast, bigger carnosaurs like Giganotosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus may have longer skulls, but lack all the biting abilities of Tyrannosaurus rex. Their slender skulls lack the space for muscle attachments and their relatively small teeth (compaired to T.rexes) defy a strong bite. In fact, the super-carnosaurs lack the shock absorbing adaptions built into the skull of Tyrannosaurus to tackle the recoil of biting down with extreme force. Long story short, Tyrannosaururs could bite harder than any known land animal to man. The only animal that can expect to exceed a Tyrannosaur in bite force is a bigger Tyrannosaur.

Don't get me wrong, I do think the other big carnivores are cool, but Tyrannosaururs is the undisputed champion among them. And this is why I do not think Giganotosaururs is not as effective as Tyrannosaururs when it comes to killing, besides, Giganotosaururs and Carcharodontosaurus were simply the basic old allosaur design taken to the extreme, hardly a match for Tyrannosaurus.

Monstarr, I'm sorry, but I choose to digress from your view. I know it's annoying to see T.rex so popular, and I find it that way too. But popular or not, T.rex is the unmatched king of lizard-killers, by a wide margin.
from Joseph, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 30, 2001

Still going by the "Giganotosaururs is equal or better" thing? Come on, that argument wore thin a long time ago (about mid last year, to be exact). T-rex is still at the top of the carnivorous dinosaur hierarchy. He is the best nature has to offer. If there is an overrated dinosaur, Giganotosaurus would be it, Spinosaurus is teethering close to that edge too you know.
from Grace T., age 14, ?, ?, ?; January 30, 2001

Well, it's my personal opinion that T.Rex would have the major advantage against anything the carnosaur and spinosaur family could throw at him. Yes, some of them were bigger, but they were simply a very big play on the simplistic grapple and bite methods and a poor tatic with dealing with a foe like Tyrannosaururs.

A Tyrannosaurid on the other hand, besides being faster, smarter and stronger pound for pound, it was also tougher. Not to mention that ultimate bite. Given all that, I recon Tyrannosaurus has more than an ample edge to beat just about any other carnivorous dinosaur in the world.

Prehaps I would do a Spinosaurus vs. T.Rex scene in Old Blood or the sequel to it, but the verdict is pretty obvious and clear, no matter how big Spinosaurus possibley could get:

T.Rex would win.
from Billy Macdraw, age 18, ?, ?, ?; January 30, 2001

Really? Monstarr? I thought it's the majority opinion of the (non-south american) paleontologists that Tyrannosaururs Rex could win a fight with Giganotosaurus 5 times out of 7 (if they fought). If they were of equal weight, Tyrannosaururs will win every round.
from Lillian T., age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 30, 2001

I'm not convinced Giganotosaurus was really as nasty as he was cracked out to be. A slighter skull than Tyrannosaurus, smaller and weaker teeth, no facilities for septic bites, low intelligence, lack of curcurial adaptations(slower), lower power to weight ratio, slenderer bones(more fragile). I hardly see this as a good replacement for T.Rex. I guess the secret of T.Rex sucess is mainly due to its ability to consistently outdo it's opponents. Many dinosaurs have tried to get the better of Tyrannosaururs, but have failed. I guess that's why he was one of the last dinos to fall, he was one of the best, the great survivor, the meanest of the meanest.
from Josh, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 30, 2001

I see no pratical reason for T.Rex and Spinosaururs to fight, but for the sake of an argument, I figure the odds are about 1:10. Besides, I prefer to look beyond the ares of size and weight and go into ability instead. T.Rex was certainly far more able to take on large animals than Spinosaururs. I son't know waht you mean by T.Rex being compressed, but he looks pretty solid to me. Spinosaurs looks almost painfully thin from the front view. I suppose Spinosaurus would be pretty nasty when cornered (which carnivore wouldn't?), but certainly non-deserving of the superkiller status JP3 is about to give him, yes, I do think he has a padded resume.
from Josh, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 30, 2001

"The spinosaurus in jurassic park is wrong, but couldve happened. You see young bears who arent really fat at all."

Heck, if this logic was used, I guess we could have 50+ feet, 9 ton Tyrannosaurus....wait, they do exist.............So considering all that, I don't see why the Jurassic Park 3 crew didn't make Rigby-sized Tyrannosaururs Rexes, if they could make oversized Spinosauruses.

In short, this mid-summer, Spinosaurus is going to get a burst of undeserved fame. But what the heck, the reason so many kids like Velociraptor today is because they still think it's the size of a man.
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 30, 2001

I beg to differ (and that's not because T.Rex is my favourite!), but I think T.Rex probally exceed any other land-based carnivore in terms of unit per unit killing ability. I've seen quite a few T.Rex and other terepod skeletons myself, and my impression is that, T.Rex was more heavily built than any other terepod except for it's tail.

I'm not too sure about the hump monstarr, it's an alternative theory, but the probalem arises in the ball-socket joints of the spines, which tends to contradict it being a scaffoding for a hump. The spines would have been flexible and been able to fold like a fan when the dinosaur arched it's back. A hump would have prevented this anatomical feature from playing itself.

Besides, wouldn't a hump be deadweight in a fight? I mean, while T.Rex spends most of his strength into movement, Spinosaurus (if it had a hump) would have to allocate some energy into dragging the hump around. Wouldn't having a hump also rise it's center of gravity? Making it wasier to topple? I mean, a Spinosaur with a fin seems a far lot deadiler.

I'm not sure what you mean by T.Rex being "compressed", but save for his slight tail, he seems pretty stoutly built compaired to Spinosaurus. He certainly would be stronger by a far lot. Spinosaurus seems pretty fragile when put against T.Rex.
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 30, 2001

Naa, it just that I think JP3 is going to have a negative impact on paleontology as a whole, that's sad. I mean, after spending so much money on making these dinosaurs, couldn't they at least built them to what we currently know about about them? Why blow up a dinosaur by 50 percent?? Instead of Spinosaurus, why not GIganotosaurus? At least that would ahve been believable. Not a Spinosaurus with a 8 foot skull (bah!)
from Josh, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 30, 2001

Naa, it just that I think JP3
from Josh, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 30, 2001

The spinosaurus in jurassic park is wrong, but couldve happened. You see young bears who arent really fat at all.
from ?, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 29, 2001

Josh, you seem to be very hostile and angry, something wrong there buddy?
from Monstarr, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 29, 2001

You know, the way Spinosaurus' "sail" was built just like a mammals fat storage spines, makes alot of scientist awry about the sail. Dimetrodon had a sail, spinosaur's spines are too flattened. I know he couldnt beat a T.rex, but cornered, Spinosaurus would be very very nasty, and he wasnt as light as Josh says. He didnt have no raptor claws, but they could be defensive weapons if the need were to arise, besides, T.rex is not the best, and as far as movies go hes played out. If they wanted a big nasty they shouldve chose, Giganotosaurus. Even though he was equal in killing ability to T.rex, comparing the two would be like comparing jaguar to a puma. Scientist say they were equal, and if they did go head to head, it would depend on the area who would win. Not to mention, T.rex was very compressed himself.
from monstarr, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 29, 2001

Phew, I finally got that chapter out, really, if you took Old Blood, and put it into a book the size of our common novel, it'll take up about 321 pages
from Billy Macdraw, age 18, ?, ?, ?; January 29, 2001

What does length have to do with how well Spinosaurus could hold itself in a fight???!!
from Flamebird, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 29, 2001

I have seen Spinosaurus hands, but they don't look pretty impressive to me. They're long, granted, but they didn't have super-claws at the end of those things, only the "standard" issue weapons found on most dinosaurs. Heck, if anything, given this dinosaur ran on two legs, these arms would have actually made it more unwieldy than served its purpose in offense. (and I'm not saying this because T.Rex is my favourite!)
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 29, 2001

Actually Monstarr, Sue was 42 feet long. Rigby's rex measured up to 52 feet(estimated) while Horner's rexes measured up to 47 feet (estimated) And not to mention these T.Rexes don't "cheat" they don't have an unusually long tail to make them longer. Spinosaurus was 50 feet (actually 45 feet would be more realistic) more because of it's tail, not it's actual size. Standing side by side, Spinosaurus reached up to T.Rexes shoulder. Heck if we went by your argument, we could say Brachiosaurus was way lighter than other sauropods as it wasn't as long. Proportions matter more.
from Josh, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 29, 2001

Monstarr, size has little to do with lenght. Spinosaurus was "laterally" compressed, making it kinda "thin". The JP3 Spinosaurus appears to have been "beefed" up. I've also noticed them reducing the size of the sail to make it look less fragile and "meaner". In real life, a Spinosaururs should have weighted about 4-5 tons, lighter than T.Rex. I'm not sure if its hand was really that deadly. Like the horns of Triceratops, they were placed in the wrong area to do damage. It would be good for fishing though. Yep, there is something certainly wrong with the JP Spinosaurus.
from Josh, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 29, 2001

I'm not sure, prehaps you could order that Giganotosaurus book too?
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 29, 2001

what^ people! I just found my new best friend! Megaraptor, foot claw 15 inchs long! so kewl! raptors are my thing (99%) and I plan to rule the fossl world! got to run, bye!
from Jennifer R, age 12, Salina, Kansas, USA; January 29, 2001

I've never seen Preadtory Dinosaurs of the world, but I'm considering ordering a copy for $100 (about $70 USD). Is it worth it? From what i hear, it should be. Other than geography, what suggestes that Giganotosaurus is an abelisaur?
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 29, 2001

Cmon you guys, Spinosaurus was 50 ft long, and themost recent biggest T.rex now is like 41 ft, its not sue,. If they did face off, a spinosaurus could hold his own. You ever seen a spinosaur's hand claws, wow! T.Rex is tougher, but a spinosaur is nobody you wanna pick on or get cornered, for real.
from monstarr, age 14, detroit, ?, ?; January 29, 2001

Old Blood, it's out.
from Billy Macdraw, age 18, ?, ?, ?; January 29, 2001

Well, I'm not sure if this helps, but accucrate drawings of Spinosaur skeletons are quite abundant. Most of them were based on the destroyed skeleton and should be pretty accucrate. Go get em!

Have you checked "Predatory dinosaurs of the world?"
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 29, 2001

Thanks, I didn't know that. But my main gripe is still about the proposed battled between a overblown Spinosaurus and a T.Rex...I'd hate to see the misconceptions rising out from that movie.
from Josh, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 29, 2001

I think teh case for Giganotosaurus being an Abelisaur got stronger, but I know too little about this to be sure. It seems that some people want to classify the super allosaurs into a special class of their own.
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 29, 2001

My scanner is a roller scanner, and the picture is somewhere in a book! sorry, I can't. But try lookign for it on the net, I saw it once.
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 29, 2001

what is the biggest dinosaur?
from joe, age 12, phx, az, usa; January 29, 2001

Is there any chance you could find the spinosaur photo again, scan it, and share it with us?
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 29, 2001

Actually, its Spinosaurus who is most likely not a carnosaur. More likely a basal tetanuran, with the megalosaurus (Spinosauridae + Megalosauridae = Spinosauroidea?). The next node on the cladogram is Avetheropoda, and Carnosauria and Coelurosauria branch off from there. Carnosauria is defined as all avetheropods sharing a more recent common ancestor with _Allosaurus_ than with Aves. That alternative theory that Giganotosaurus is an Abelisaur, is that still around?
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 29, 2001

Well Josh, you do make a convincing case. I think all of us better prepair for the fallout from JP3 before it arrives in the form of disgrunted and misguided kids.
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 29, 2001

GUYS! OLD BLOOD HAS ABOUT 3 MORE CHAPTERS TO GO! TELL ME HOW YOU WANT IT TO END!
from Billy Macdraw, age 18, ?, ?, ?; January 28, 2001

Well, the time looks ripe for another versus bout, Tyrannosaurus vs Spinosaurus!

Now, we'll acess this from a scientific pouint of view and look at the advantages of the animals:

Spinosaurus

Well, not too much is known about this dinosaur, the only fragmentory skeleton we have was as Honkie said, blown to bits. (stupid Nazis!:-) Anyway, what we know about Spinosaururs today is based mainly on teeth and by compairative anatomy to its close relatives.

Our current picture of Spinosaururs make a possibily one of the biggest carnosaurs known. (excluding Giganotosaururs as they might not be carnosaurs) This animal probally hunted fish with its extra-long skull lined with many 5 centimeter conical teeth. Another notable feature about Spinosaururs is its unusually long arms, so long that some theories have it going around on all fours. These could prove useful in a fight with Tyrannosaururs. (though they never met, nor do animals like to fight)

Tyrannosaururs, on the other hand, had laughable arms, (though you might not tell it to his face) which served little purpose in defense of attack. Most of Tyrannosaururs ability to kill would be focoused in its mouth. No land animal known to man, living or extinct, exceeds Tyrannosaururs in biting ability. Tyrannosaururs was the champion of bite by a wide margin. We are told by paleontologists (and movies) repeatedely that Tyrannosaururs could make short work of any meal it came across, save for Ankylosaururs. Indeed, I've heard that Tyrannosaururs could "ravish" a battle tank if it wanted too. That's alot of bite.

Now, to the battle, the most obvious difference will be that Tyrannosaururs is greately stonger than Spinosaururs. Tyrannosaururs had powerful jaws, neck and just about its whole body while Spinosaururs had a long, low skull on a longer, slender, neck, and not reinforced for strength, granted this would be good for fishing, but not for fighting Tyrannosaururs!! It's obvious that Tyrannosaururs is a far stronger dinosaur than Spinosaurus.

Another thing, Spinosaururs had a long skull, which left it very little space for muscle attachments. Tyrannosaururs had a skull about two feet shorter, but about twice as wide. Tyrannosaurus certainly had more robust skull and powerful bite, given the grater number of muscle attachments. While its easy to imagine Tyrannosaururs biting off the head of Spinosaururs into a messy pulp, it's hard to see Spinosaururs doing the same. Spinosaururs is certainly in dange rif it wants to engage in a biting contest with Tyrannosaururs.

So it's a call for arms, Spinosaururs' best chance will be to attempt to grapple Tyrannosaururs with its monster-arms. But once again, given Tyrannosaururs is way stronger, I figure he could overpower Spinosaururs should such a thing happen and deliever swift extinction to the South African dinosaur. I guess Spinosaururs could try to wound T.Rex with its arm claws, but I can't see how much damage it could do, given how much Tyannosaururs could give back in return. Not to mention, Spinosaururs' arms were severly restricted in movement due to their posititon on the animals' body, reducing it's effectiveness. Besides, rearing up and using your arms to fight in the case of Spinosaururs presents a larger and easier target for Tyrannosaururs to attack and topple, not too good for the owner of those arms.

I also see Tyannosaururs as a far tougher customer, we have seen how Tyrannosaurs sustain and survive a life of terrible injuries that would have finished off just about any other predator long ago. Clearly, not only could Tyrannosaurus take more damage, it could also give more damage. While I can imagine Spinosaururs having trouble with killing T.Rex with a bite to the neck, I can picture T.Rex severing Spinosaururs' long and fragile neck in a single bite (and that's not because Tyrannosaururs is my favourite). Tyrannosaururs is clearly a tougher dinosaur.

Also, from what we do know about Spinosaururs' relatives, I can figure that Spinosaururs was a relatively simple-minded dinosaur compaired to Tyrannosaururs. Tyrannosaururs was cerainly brainer than Spinosaururs, and probally a lot faster on the uptake as well.

But my main reason that Tyrannosaururs will win is due to his bite. A single bite by Tyrannosaururs will spell doom for Spinosaururs, like Mr. Demetrios said, T. rex was designed, like I said before, to take out big animals with its mouth. And that's what it would do to the Spinosaururs. Spinosaururs on the other hand, was not made for a brawl with large prey. In the end, it's much like a fight between a heavyweight boxer and a basketball player, a basketball player may be taller, but he's good for shooting hoops, not boxing!

So T.Rex will win in any case. The only way I can see him lose a fight with Spinosaururs is in a movie, aka JP3. But even so, to make T.Rex lose, the film crew must potray him as a much bigger crybaby than he was in the other two films. I don't think too many kids will be pleased, but whoever told them to take Jurassic Park seriously??
from Josh, age 12, ?, ?, ?; January 28, 2001

Jurassic Park has a good history of being incredibily realistic, but yet also having a lot of big errors at the same time, I don't mind that as it's just a movie, but I really hate to think of how many kids will be misled by all this misconceptions. After the first JP, so many kids refused to believe Velociraptor was the size of a dog, or believe that standing still in front of T.Rex is a really stupid thing to do, why? because "Jurassic Park said so". It's really sad. Now many fustrated paleontologists are going to spend months cleaning up the fallout about a Spinosaurus that had been blown up by about 50 percent. I've seen a rare photo of a Sphinosaurus skeleton, (before it got blown to bits by a bomb in WW2) and it looked alot longer, but smaller than T.Rex. Many other dinosaur books also appear to support this view. Spinosaurus might have been 15 meters long, but weighed only about 4 to 5 tons.

Well, even if he was 20 percent bigger than rex, I'd be hard pressed to see how he could kill rexy, given that at that size, rexy could still do far more damage(we've seen him rip cars apart). Maybe nosaurus could give him a couple of gashes, but I can't see how that'll kill him. Never mind, I got too far, it's just a movie.
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 28, 2001

Do you think Gryposaurus and Kritosaurus are the same dinosaur? Personally I don't but it is a very spread around theory and I want other people's input.
from russell p, age ?, seattle, wa, seattle; January 28, 2001

http://www.upcomingmovies.com/jurassicpark3.html
http://www.jp3hq.com

Also goto:
Dan's jp3 page
from ?, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 28, 2001

Spinosaurus 20% bigger than T-rex? What the heck! Sounds sort of like what they did with the Velociraptors. Only certain sauropod dinosaurs would have been even notably bigger than T-rex. In case you didn't know, Jurassic Park 3 is supposed to be called "Extinction' and is coming out in July (United States). I have heard a rumor there is going to be a herd of giant hadrosaurs.
from russell p, age ?, seattle, wa, usa; January 28, 2001

JP3 will be in theatres this summer.
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 28, 2001

Ahem, you mean there is a FAIR fight between a spindly dinosaur with overgrown arms that ate mainly fish with its weak jaw and another superbiting dinosaur designed to take down five ton animals in a single bite????
from Billy Macdraw, age 18, ?, ?, ?; January 28, 2001

Well, I might mention more about the JP3 problems in the project I have been working on and off for about a month now, it's a comic about a Sabertooth and his best friend done Calvin and Hobbes style, I might post it soon. Any suggestions for a title?
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 28, 2001

Well, JP3 is a movie, not a documentry. I suppose they could make a dino the size of Godzilla (or bigger) and find a even-harder-to-believe reason to make it rational, but the fact remains it's not real, don't take it too seriously.
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 28, 2001

OH NO....I just saw on a webpage that Jurassic Park 3 will feature a spinosaur...I don't have a problem with that, but I have a BIG problem with how their going to portray it. They're saying it has an 8 foot skull and that it takes a pack of tyrannosaurus to kill it!!!!What the f*** is that??!?!?? They even go as far as saying its 20 percent bigger than Rex...not even Giganatosaurus is that much larger than Rex! Even still, there are yet larger Rexes than Giganatosaurus currently under excavation! I just hope they don't do something stupid and show spinosaurus butcher a Rex or a pack of Rexes...I shudder to think how many kids will leave the theater thinking that spinosaurus is the Anti-Rex...
from Sauron, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 27, 2001

The JP3 logo is Spinosaurus. Here's a great site about it! You can actually see the spinosaur as it will appear in the movie, wow! Be sure to read the articles, including one about a spin/rex fight!

http://www.geocities.com/logosaurus/
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 27, 2001

I said that Sauroposeidon was the biggest new dinosaur, not the biggest dinosaur. I think Argentinosaurus was described in 1993. What's the definition of a 'new' dinosaur? _The Newest and Coolest Dinosaurs_ is probably in need of a second volume.
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 27, 2001

From the zoom dinosaurs dictionary:

"ARTHURDACTYLUS

Arthurdactylus conan-doylensis (named for Sir Arthur Conan

Doyle, who wrote "The Lost World") was a pterosaur (not a

dinosaur). This Pterodactyloid had an estimated wingspan 15

feet (4.6 m); this pterodactyl has wings that were proportionately

longer than any other pterosaur. Fossils of this flying reptile were

found in northeastern Brazil . This carnivore lived during the early

Cretaceous period. Arthurdactylus was described in 1994 by E.

Frey and D. Martill."

Uh, isn't this animal misnamed? The suffix "ensis" is used to indicate the place of discovery. (You could name it Arthuradctylus brazilensis, and that would be fine.) Specific names honouring a person typically end in "i", or "ae" if the person is female. Perhaps they were trying to say "pterosaur from Arthur Conan Doyle's place [the Lost World]" but its not entirely clear. I also question the use of a hyphen in a scientific name.

Can "Gallodactylus" be read as "chicken fingers"?
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 27, 2001

Jurassic Park 3? Are they actually making one? This might sound stupid, but I've never heard about it.
from JOE BOB B., age 10, Menlo Park, ?, ?; January 27, 2001

I found a good selection of BATTAT dinosaur replicas at the Bay today. I got _Ouranosaurus nigeriensis_, _Stegosaurus ungulatus_ and Styracosaurus albertensis_ for $12.62, despite original sticker prices of $9.99 each :)

Clearance sales rule.
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 27, 2001

I certainly agree Honkie Tong, Baryonyx is cool.
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 26, 2001

Yeah, are there going to be spinosaurs in JP3??? The logo for it is the same save its metallic and it features a kink-snouted theropod strikingly similar to suchiomimus rather than the traditional T-Rex...what's this all 'bout?
from Sauron, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 26, 2001

I think Sauroposeidon was found in Oklahoma.
from Travis, age 12, Gulfport, MS, US; January 26, 2001

Baryonyx is cool.
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 26, 2001

Sauroposeidon is from OK I think, Brad (not sure). There weren't enough fossils of this guy to determine if it was bigger than Argentinosaurus though. It was a good candidate for the tallest, though, but not the largest masswise.
from Chandler, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 26, 2001

and also the dilophosaurus in jurassic park was suppose to be a young dilophosaurus.
from spidey, age 200, ?, ?, usa; January 26, 2001

did any of you hear that there will be a spinosaurus in jurassic park 3?
from spidey, age 200, sunrise, florida, usa; January 26, 2001

The biggest new dinosaur is Sauroposeidon. Its American, but I forget which state.
from Brad, age 14, Fenelon Falls, ON, Canada; January 26, 2001

Sorry, I wasn't clear. My point is, it's hard to tell a lot just from two arms. In fact, you can tell very little at all. Let along the shape of its hips, skull and what have you not.
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 25, 2001

There is a problem with spitting though, Dilophosaurus did not have cheeks or a fully articulated lip, and therefore would have been unable to use atmospheric pressure to spit, like we and alot of other mammals do. The only way for it to spit would be via some kind of "king cobra" way, but we've yet to find evidence of it.
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 25, 2001

Yup, the JP Dilophosaurus lacks the recurve in the snout, which irratingly forces me to buid it up from miliput whenever I do a JP Dilophosaurus. The crests are also way too big and missized. It's ironic the person who made the Dilophosaurus models for JP also made the T.Rex models, which are one one the finest indeed.
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 25, 2001

teternkfn got my words i love dinosaurs
from tylerm, age 9, ?, ?, ?; January 25, 2001

I posted a theory a while ago that the JP "Dilophosaurus" was actually a _Syntarsus kayentakatae_ that was misidentified by the JP scientists. S. kayentakatae was only formally described in 1989, the year after the events in Jurassic Park. They could not have called it by the correct name, so "Dilophosaurus" is more acurate in that it agrees with the setting of the story :) Of course, they were working with patches of DNA from all over the place, and the animal we saw could have been a combination of any various dinosaurs that were small, and/or had crests, and/or had a smooth jaw.

Having all of the dinosaurs in JP be full-sized would be terribly unrealistic. They were still in the process of making dinosaurs, so of course there would be younger, smaller dinosaurs. People especially enjoy looking at baby animals in zoos, so I don't think they would hide all of the juveniles in a barn unless they were still totally dependant on care from the JP staff.

As for the neck frills, I've always had a big problem with those things. JP picture books explain it as a 'warning' that the dilophosaur is about to spit. But that is totally wrong. Predators don't want to warn their prey, they want to surprise it. Skunks have warnings before they spray, but that is becuase their spray is purely defensive and they need to conserve it. The frill could have been used to overwhem and frighten a cornered animal, but dilophosaurus was a capable predator with huge teeth.... it really doesn't add up.

As for spitting, its original and I like it. Come on, isn't the idea of dinosaurs with poison glands cool? There were probably behaviours in the Mesozoic that we haven't imagined yet. And its a lot better than seeing Nedry being dragged down and bitten to death by a little dinosaur. If the dilophosaur was 8 feet tall, it could lose the venom. But I like the scene the way it is.

They shouldn't have simplified those jaws.
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 25, 2001

I have heard about these new dinosaurs that have been discovered over the past year, there was one real big one. What did they call it and where did it live?
from Tom, age 13, Christchurch, 8001, New Zealand; January 25, 2001

Jurassic Park was wrong about the Dilophosaurus. For one thing, real Dilophosaurus were much larger than their Jurassic Park counterparts. And another thing is that there is no evidence that Dilophosaurus had neck frills or poison glands. They were not needed since it was the largest predator at its time, so poison wouldn't matter. Also, the Dilophosaur in the movie had simplified jaw bones.
from Travis, age 12, Gulfport, MS, US; January 25, 2001

What's special about ornithomimid hips?
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 25, 2001

I'm not sure about my favoourite ornithopod. It could be Heterodontosaurus, but I'm not yet conviced that is an ornithopod. Leaellynasaura is nice, but I'm kind of losing interest in it. I think I'll go with Ouranosaurus for that question. Yes, Ouranosaurus.
But Shantungosaurus is impressive.......

I don't think that Deinocheirus is an ornithomimid, but it might be an ornithomimosaur. The diagnostic characteristics of ornithomimosaurs (and the families in that group- Harpymimids, Garudimimids,and Ornithomimids) are based on the femur (see Glut 1997), a bone not known in Deinocheirus. Maniraptora is based on hand characteristics, but in that book includes Ornithomimosauria! So, I'll look up Deinocheirus itself.

It's listed as Theropods incertae sedis.

Okay, that's not very helpful. But the entry does list these characterstics (Glut's own summary and a reference to the original paper are contradictory; I went with Osmolska and Roniewicz's description because it more closely agreed with the photo)-

scapula 25% longer than humerous
scapulacoraicoid (shoulder) more typical theropod structure than in Ornithomimus
humerous with robust and proximally located deltopectoral crest
radius slightly over half the length of humerous?
hand slightly longer than humerous
limb bones hollow and thick-walled
hand broader than in Ornithomimus
unlike Ornithomimus, first finger was unable to fold inward
three fingers, equally developed
manual ungals robust and strongly curved
manual ungals "raptorial" (meaning predatory, not nescessarily dromaeosaurid!)

So, can anyone match those descriptions to a specific family? The travelling dinosaur exhibition that a few of us attended last summer had some eggs and embryos from a _big_ oviraptorid. I speculated that they may have been laid by a Deinocheirus-- could I be right?

What's the title/author/illustrator of the book with the bad allosaur picture? I've never noticed it, but I have read a lot of dinosaur books.
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 25, 2001

I like jarassic park because the people get eatting and thats a good family movie so how bout it peoples? I also like lost world because I like raptors there the best!
from Charlene H., age 12, spokane, WA, USA; January 25, 2001

The next Old Blood should come out anytime soon, so wait for it. Also coming soon is the third run of Dino Warz, as I have read from the posts here, a much awaited highlight.

Say JC, could you be so kind as to seperate the Dino Warz into it's seasons? Season 1 and Season 2. I would prefer Counterstrike to have it's own niche too.

(Season 1 ends after Dino Warz 4, you can lump Honkie's bio into season 2. )
from Billy Macdraw, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 25, 2001
Okay - it's done. JC

Deinocheirus is a ornithomimid? How can they tell the shape of its hips just by looking at the arms? It's stupid, it's all guesswork. It could be an ornithomimid, it could be not, but the person who passed the theory that it MUST be an ornithomimd is stupid to do so.
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 25, 2001

If you had to chosse, what would be your favorite ornithopod? Also, how accurate do you think the theory is that Deinocheirus is a ornithomimid? Also, if you want to hear about mistakes, I have a book that has a picture of Allosaurus with it's ribcage sticking out about 6 feet/2 meters in front of it's chest! It is supposed to be hunting dryosaurus, so the artist really screwed up.
from russell p., age ?, seattle, wa, usa; January 24, 2001

Hey! Another guy from Singapore! But I donno whay you're talking.
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 24, 2001

I've sent in some new pictures: LEGO building instructions!!! Start sorting your pieces.....
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 24, 2001

Lystrosaurus and Placerias were Triassic, weren't they?
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 24, 2001

WELL I THINK THAT THE TRICERATOPS WHERE A REALLY COOL BACK THEN AND I ALSO THINK THAT THEY WHERE THE CUTEST OF THEM ALL .
from paloma A., age 16, DALLAS, TEXAS, U.S.A.; January 24, 2001

This site is the best if u r doing dinosaur reports in Mrs.C's class!!!. Keep up the good info
from Ryan U., age 12, ?, IOWA, USA; January 24, 2001

I like dinosaurs until I discorvered permian creatures now I also like them.My favorite dinosaur is ankylosaurus second is pachyrhinosaurus third is stegosaurus.Permian creatures:1st lystrosaurus second edaphosaurus third placerias.Dinosaurs are not around now. My father says meat eaters ate other dinos up. I tell him that some dinosaurs did not evolved weapons for nothing. Dinosaurs vs proto mammls that are from the permian.
from DONOVAN, age 9, ?, singapore, ?; January 24, 2001

Hey, nice pictures!
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 23, 2001

Why do I have a bad feeling I'm bound to offend your mother by my painting a raw, unsensored view of the typical asian diet? I'm not sure if it's the case for the American Asians, but you can ask them. Xie xie ni, gong xi fa chai.
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 23, 2001

Did I mention tiger meat too? And there is bear too, but current conservation efforts have put these dishes out of the menu. Whales are nice, but run into the same problem. Rabbit meat is rather bland and weak, not my favourite. Turtle meat tastes like croc meat, but a little weaker. Deer and lamb meat is normal, we eat that too often. As for primates, I heard but not seen of people eating monkeys, and sucking their brains while the animal is still alive (yuk) via a straw. I do know of some people who eat dogs, they describe the meat as "heaty". Oddly enough, these people are dog lovers. Don't get us wrong, we don't kill and eat our own pets, there're farm-raised dogs to kill and eat (at leat in korea). But all such activities stopped in Singapore after the British imposed certain laws on "traditional" diets that are still being kept after their withdrawal. The only time I get to eat exotic dishes is during a red-letter day, like Chinese New Year(wh! ich is now). Soem people are taking rat.

What can I say? We have a varied diet?

(Word of advice, don't bring your pet along if you're visiting China, Singapore is safe, but I've heard cases of the angry-American-who-lost-a-Great-Dame-due-to-miscommunication-with-the-locals. Be careful with your pets will ya? Oddly enough, I havent' seen a lot of stray dogs in the cities of China during my trips over there....)
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 23, 2001

Slow? Based on what? I think Tyrannosaurus were very capable of high speed movement. Besides, why would T.Rex chase ostrich dinosaurs when there were a whole lot of other dinos easier to catch? (Anatotitan...etc) Once again, your points hold no weight.
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 23, 2001

We Singaporeans are pretty unromatic about the food we eat, we usually don't care about how "cute" or endangered it is, that's why so many of us still eat sharks fin, snakes, dogs(yum), cats(rarely, but yum). I havent tried the dog or cat yet, but snakes taste a lot like fish, after they have been boiled for a long time. Croc meat tastes "cold", but is much like chicken meat, and so is frog meat. Jellyfish, tried them before? Taste like frim jelly-o. Sharks fin is nice, but I'm currently eating the geletin mock sharks fin for this new year due to the current shortage (and hooha), but really, last new year, real sharks of all sizable species were being chopped up and butchered for their fins, and I was eating them.
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 23, 2001

Chandler,I don't under stand your Q.!but I'll try to A.1.that is simpl just A. my Q.s.2.tell me a person that you want to know about or a person that is interesting.
from J.S., age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 23, 2001

For some reason my computer is acting very screwy on this message board, but I'll try to answer J.S.'s question anyhow, but I'm not sure what you're asking, J.S.
from Chandler, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 23, 2001

Okay, now I see your pictures, Brad. Good work! I like the tyrannosaur v. hadrosaur one the best!
from Chandler, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 23, 2001

OHH!Can you plese tell me a preson that you would like to know about or a person that you think is interesting.('cause I a'm doing a report, and need some ides.)
from J.S., age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 23, 2001

Brad, you posted pictures? ARG, I can't see them, my cache is messed up, it won't let me see the updated fan art page...
from Chandler, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 23, 2001

I have a few more Q. to make my other Q. a little more clear.(all about herbavors)What H. is tallest?What H. weighs the most?And if you put both them togeather?(the biggest)A. as many as posabol.
from J.S., age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 23, 2001

Brad,
Your art is great! How about painting a brontosaurus?
from Stacey, age 14, Oakville, on, Canada; January 23, 2001

Great! Does anyone have any comments?
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 23, 2001

How long does it usually take for new pictures to be posted?
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 23, 2001
It depends on the format and size of the picture (huge ones in unusual formats take a while). They're online. JC

Honkie Tong, are you at all exaggerating? In my family, there are only four tetrapods considered edible- cows, pigs, chickens, and turkeys. My sister and my mom are opposed to eating animals that have (usually false) cute personalities attached to them- deer, rabbits, lambs, etc. While there are some animals I would never want to eat (cats, dogs, primates, whales...), I would like to include more reptiles in my diet. What do alligators taste like? I don't think I've even eaten a reptile or amphibian in my life.
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 23, 2001

Oh my goodness, another BBD.
from Josh, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 23, 2001

Ha Honkie, that's so typical of you. Honkie, people around may think you are very good, but I see through to your true colours. You don't know anything about dinosaurs, you just gang up with Brad and such to make Trex look good. You only care about Trex, not about dinosaurs, because you know nothing about them. Trex is certainly a scavenger, that's a fact, it's not disputable due to it's slow running speed. Who cares if its got good eyesight or hearing or smell? It couldnt catch its prey at all. Ostrich dinos will easily outrun it, leaving it to starve if it was a hunter. Ha Honkie, you lost and I won, Velociraptors were certainly superdeadily hunters, and a pack of 10 will be more than enough to kill Trex, but they don't bother as Trex was only a lowly scavenger.
from Veloci, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 23, 2001

I don't want to start another lame raptor vs.... something here, but I would really like to ask this question: How really did the raptors attack big prey?

Well, the current state-of-the-art is that they used their sickle claws like mountainer boots to dig into the larger animal while using their forelimbs to swipe and slash. Well, that's nice, but given the're only anchored by their feet, wouldn't they topple over backwards? Given the prey animal will be moving with some energy?

An alternative theory haves them grapple the prey with their forelimbs, all the while biting and kicking away at the prey animal. But this also runs into the same problem. The forelimbs of the animal much be able to hold onto the prey, all the while resisting the entire weight of the raptor and all the preyt animal's action. Moreever, in order to kick, the raptor has to give itself considerable standoff distance from the body of the prey animal, not too good a pratice, it's about as likely to fall off as a rider in a rodeo.

The last theory have them hanging on with all fours and biting away, but once again, given the severity of raptor bites on prey about 300 times their size, I think it would be a terribly inefficent way to kill an animal. And besides, having to do this will contradict all statements about the raptors being efficent predators...well, you can't have it both ways, you can be a puny 85 kilos and expect to bring down a 7000kilo animal efficently.

Given all this, don't you think that all our theories about how the raptors hunted big prey may have put them in extreme danger? Maybe that's the reason they went extinct, or prehaps we are all barking up the wrong tree in regard to raptor predation...
from ?, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 22, 2001

Well, I'm working on the next Old Blood.
from Billy Macdraw, age 18, ?, ?, ?; January 22, 2001

Well, I suppose sharks and crocs(yum!) without arms are all scavengers. Also, I choose to differ on your opinion on "small" eyes. A single T.Rex eyeball is bigger than your fist, and it certainly wasn't small. The optical center of T.Rex's brain wasn't really big, but it was certainly bigger than our's and compairable to that of an eagle. If anything, we'd expect T.Rex to have very good eyesight. Besides, eagles and falcons have small eyes, but they have acute vision.

Besides sharks and dogs have a very good sense of smell, try telling their prey they're mainly scavengers! Besides, if the lack of arms and good smell make you a scavenger, I suppose most of our birds of prey are scavengers.

Not that I want to oppose you, but your points don't hold up to the scrunity.
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 22, 2001

Hmm, we Singaporeans always kill our food ourselves. For example, frogs! Buy a frog or catch one (avoid catching cane toads, bullfrongs do fine) and take it in your palm with its head between your fingers. Slam the head real hard down on a hard edge of a table or a similar surface to break the neck. You'll have to do this with guts and strength, or the frog will suffer. For chickens, the twpo best methods of killing are disloacting its neck or bleeding it. I prefer the former, but you'll still have to drain the blood, so the latter is more efficent.

Our motto: "If it moves and has more than two legs...eat it! To heck with PETA!"
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 22, 2001

I'm not sure how many dinosaurs we have found as a group, but I haven't found any yet :(

If you mean how many genera have been described, the Dinosauricon ( www.dinosauricon.com ) gives the following list:

Dinosaur names can be put into categories based on how well they are known, and how good the fisrt specimen was. Here are the number of names in each category-

nomina valida
751
nomina conservanda
5
nomina dubia?
38
nomina dubia
150
nomina oblita
6
nomina nuda
102
unpublished
12
status unknown
1

And when added together, you get the number of dinosaur names there are-

SUBTOTAL
1065

But wait! Some dinosaur names can't be used by science anymore: they belong to another animal, they describe a dinosaur that already had a name, or other reasons. So, we need to remove these names from our list.

preoccupied
52
synonymous
248
misassigned
65
partly synonymous, partly misassigned
5
SUBTRACT
318
TOTAL
747

so there's the final number: 747 dinosaurs. Unfortunately, the Dinosauricon seems to be including pterosaurs and primitive birds in the list- if you just want traditional dinosaur names, go and count them! Species are harder to count than genera, since its harder to agree upon which ones are valid.

If you want to know how many individuals have been found, I've never seen an estimate of that. It would be nice to know, though.
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 22, 2001

Hmm, asking the smallest of a given group of dinosaurs is a tricky business, as either length or weight could factor into an animal's "small-ness." But I'm assuming that J.S. means the weight one, so that's the one I'll answer. Still, it's hard to tell, but the answer would probably be Microcephale, Micropachycephalosaurus, or some undiscovered species.
from Chandler, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 22, 2001

The smallest herbivore could be Micropachycephalosaurus (50 cm). Echinodon was also pretty small (60 cm). Chandler's DinoDex site has the unpublished 'Microcephale' as being the smallest pachycephaosaur (a group of dinosaurs that ate plants), at only 30 cm long. I'm not sure if its a juvenile, though. He could tell you more than I can about dinosaur records. This page from DinoDex will answer a lot of questions-

http://dinodex.8m.com/records.html#a
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 22, 2001

Does anybody know the smallest herbavor?
from J.S., age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 22, 2001

I want to know about how many dinos we have found?(thanks Brad and Josh!)
from J.S., age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 22, 2001

I can't open the page that contains my new fanfic. Every time I clicked the link, I came up with a page that said there is no such URL. JC, can you help me?
from Reuben B., age 7, Needham, MA, USA; January 22, 2001
I fixed the link. JC

Why does everyone hate scavengers? Why is Tyrannosaurus or Velociraptor not deserving of our votes because if it didn't hunt? Here's a poll I'd like everyone to answer-

1. Did you eat meat recently?

2. Did you kill the animal that you ate, or did someone else do it?

I'm not sure why we're so anti-scavenger in our paleontology discussions when most of us are one.
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 22, 2001

"Whadda ya mean? Velociraptor is much better than Trex. Trex was nothing but a scavenger. I know you are going to oppose me, Honkie, as you are a Trex fan, but explain this: If Trex was not a scavenger, thatn why did he have such a good sense of smell and poor eyesight due to his small eyes? Also, if he was a hunter, why did he have such small arms? To play basketball? Ha! Trex was nothing but a scavenger, Velociraptor was better, it was a hunter!"
- Veloci

You don't have to wait for Honkie Tong to oppose you. A good sense of smell is always a good thing to have, whether you are a predator or a scavenger. Wolves and sharks have a good sense of smell, but they can hunt. Small eyes is not the same as poor eyesight. Tyrannosaurus had small arms to balance better: by reducing the arms, it could add more weight to its head. Remember, this thing had to balance on two legs. Tyrannosaurus could have evolved longer arms that touched the ground to support the front end (as large ornithopods did), but that would not help it hunt better either. Extremely short arms sholdn't be an advantage in basketball.
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 22, 2001

I suppose so if you only like mean, deadly animals. But dogs aren't uglier than tigers, tigers aren't uglier than dogs, and dogs are much friendlier than tigers (although that is probably the result of artificial selection). There's nothing wrong with smaller carnivores.
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 22, 2001

JC, did you get Dino-show-us 6?
from Reuben B., age 7, Needham, MA, USA; January 22, 2001
I got one yesterday without an author listed (so I didn't put it online. I'll put it up now. JC

But aren't terriers automatically inferior to tigers in terms of meaness and deadliness?
from Josh, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 22, 2001

Whadda ya mean? Velociraptor is much better than Trex. Trex was nothing but a scavenger. I know you are going to oppose me, Honkie, as you are a Trex fan, but explain this: If Trex was not a scavenger, thatn why did he have such a good sense of smell and poor eyesight due to his small eyes? Also, if he was a hunter, why did he have such small arms? To play basketball? Ha! Trex was nothing but a scavenger, Velociraptor was better, it was a hunter!
from Veloci, age 14, ?, ?, ?; January 22, 2001

Well J.S, what do you want to know?
from Josh, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 22, 2001

Besides, what's up with this Velociraptor voters running around trying to catapult their dinosaur to instant stardom at T.Rexes' expense? That's not very good.
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 22, 2001

Frankly, being a Tyrannosaur fan, I do not have a big problem with Velociraptor at all, it's just the blatant and ridiculed overestimation of the Velociraptor that really bugs me. I do feel it's incredibily inaccurate to even make a statement about. Velociraptor should be put down for it's size, there's only so much a dog-sized animal can do. The way some raptor fans put Velociraptor forward is way above what it could have done in real life. Heck, if I wanted to overestimate T.Rex to the same extent Velociraptor is, I would probally suggest the idea of them taking on Ultrasauros (thought they never met) and dispaching them with incredible efficency, that's pretty lame, but I don't why the Velociraptor voters can't see that for Velociraptor.
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 22, 2001

Hmm, I suppose they frequented food rich areas at the desert fringes, but I don't think there would be a lot of swamps or deep bodies of water around to support that guy's theory. Besides, if the sauropods were mainly water bound, they would not have been so much a part of the fauna for the jurassic as the fossil record suggests, as the jurassic enviroment was not mainly bayou. Besides, that person also failed to explain dinoturbulation caused by sauropods on trees growing on dry land.
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 22, 2001

Velociraptor gets put down on the voting page for its size. What's wrong with liking dog-sized animals? Are terriers automatically inferior to tigers? Velociraptor is actually kind of cool. Not for strength or power or anything, its just a good little theropod. Dann Pigdon calls it "one of the most attractive theropods"- here's his Velociraptor page-

This link had moved!

I'm not saying that Velociraptor should be better than T. rex, I'm just saying that it's not worse.
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 21, 2001

Well, does anyone feel like answering J.S.'s question? Other than calling out "ME!", its a tough one to find a serious answer for. Some people are specialists in knowing about individual dinosaurs or families of dinosaurs, some are experts on dinosaur extinction, or evolution, or footprints, or the history of paleontology. There is almost no limit to choosing what aspect of dinosaurs you want to study. I don't think that someone can know the most about dinosaurs. We all have different sets of knowledge, and when we share what we know at a place like Dino Talk, it makes it far more interesting.
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 21, 2001

Oops, I'm 14 now, but it's a real habit to type 13 when I post here.
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 21, 2001

Even if sauropods didn't live in swamp and rely on water to support their tails, desert species are still a problem. How did they get food?

Also, why did sauropods eat plants? Don't meat-eaters eat proportionately less than plant-eaters? It should have been far easier for sauropods to survive on meat than the low-quality plants that we actually believe they ate. The old theory of sauropods eating clams is very interesting but I think it has been disproved by detailed studies of tooth wear, correct me if I'm wrong. I suppose if the meat-eaters were the biggest animals in the environment, the herbivores wouldn't have a chance so they payed the price and spent all day eating plants.
from Brad, age 13, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 21, 2001

I'd heard of Magyarosaurus, but I didn't know it was that small. It must have been an island species.
from Brad, age 13, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 21, 2001

Honkie, I wasn't aware of that theory reemerging either. It's probably wrong, as Brad said, and also, thier tails had enough support that they didn't need to drag them.
from Chandler, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 21, 2001

Brad, to my knowledge, Isanosaurus is about 23 feet (7 meters) in length.
from Chandler, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 21, 2001

Who knows the most about dinos?(plese ansere!)
from J.S., age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 21, 2001

Hey eavybody!I'm new here but I'm willing to lern.
from J.S., age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 21, 2001

When will people stay up to date with the fanfic page? The next Dino-show-us will take longer then usual to write so if people do not start staying up to date with the page, then newly returning kids who first left after January 13, 2001 will think that the voting booth, mesage board, and science forum are not up to date as well and the returners will abandon this wonderfull site (wich might be bad if the returner did somthing like win a war or suggest a page). Bill, you should be finished with Old Blood once you get up to date with the page. The fanpic section "realy" needs to get up to date. Honkie Tong, you should post your progect and stay up to date with your comics.
from Reuben B., age 7, Needham, MA, USA; January 21, 2001

To Josh, about this T.Rex vs Giganotosaurus stuff:

There were other very big dinosaur predators too -- and they may
have been just slightly less impressive at what they did as T. rex was. Some paleontologists think that these animals preyed upon their food sources in different ways -- that T. rex crushed its prey in its
powerful jaws, while, say, Carcharodontosaurus or Giganotosaurus
used their thin, razor sharp teeth to slash their prey. (Not as deadily)

A lot of us people who love T. rex have gotten upset because some (ahem) South American paleontologists are going around trying to make a cheap dollar off of animals that were, at most, a little larger. Don't worry, though -- T. rex is still the top predator of its habitat and one of the top predators of all time!

Yes, I do think Giganotosaurus may have a padded resumé.
from Norman, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 21, 2001

Well, I know I haven't been adding to my story for some time, but I'll resume shortly.
from Billy Macdraw, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 21, 2001

That's what I think too, but there's this guy who keeps insisting that the sauropods were tail draggers and swamp dwellers. When confronted with sauropod trackways which showed no tail marks, he responded the tracks were made in water, which at the time, the tail was floated, that's why there were no marks. He even went as far as to say that the relative shallowness and spread of prints seem to indicate they were made underwater, of course, he never started to explain how the desert-dwelling sauropods in asia lived, but's that's people.
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 21, 2001

Actually, the smallest (known) sauropod is Magyarosaurus (Mag-yar-oh-saurus), a smallish (about 18 to 24 feet, or 6-8 meters) sauropod. It lived about 70 million years ago in Romania, Europe. i believe it was a Titanosaur, but it might have been a Diplodicid.
from russell p, age ?, seattle, wa, usa; January 20, 2001

Sauropods could not be swamp-dwellers. Their relatively tiny compact feet would sink into the mud and they would die.
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 20, 2001

I wasn't aware that that theory had reemerged. The tail was a defensive feature as well, at least in one sauropod (Shunosaurus). Does anyone know how big Isanosaurus the Triassic sauropod was?
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 20, 2001

hey anyone out there who loves dromaeosaurids aand tyrannosaurs?
from RascoDeS., age 14, Singapore, ?, ?; January 20, 2001

Prehaps, but I'm not sure brad. Sauropods rely on their size for defense, if they got too small, they'll be easy meat for any attacker. Say Brad, what's this about the remergence theory about the sauropods being tail draggers and swamp dwellers?
from Honkie Tong, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 19, 2001

50236 feet? Even Calvinosaurus Wattersoni was not that big. It was only about 340 meters long.
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 19, 2001

Is Amargasaurus (33 feet long) the smallest sauropod?
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 19, 2001

No dinosaur is 50236 feet long or tall, or even 85 feet tall. The tallest dinosaurs were only about 50 feet tall, and included animals like Brachiosaurus. Acanthopolis was an ankylosaur, a low-built dinosaur that wouldn't have even been ten feet tall. There are a list of factors that prevented dinosaurs from being thosands of feet long: legs must support weight but still be able to move, high food requirements, problems with disposing of heat, and difficulty of having a large enough population to keep the species going (since they each needed so much food, there couldn't be as many). I strongly doubt that any dinosaur was over 200 feet long.
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 19, 2001

Karin and Frances:

Dinosaur necks could be very long. The neck of Mamenchisaurus was over 30 feet long and made up half of the animal's length. Sauropods in general ranged in length from under 40 to over 120 feet.

Tyrannosaurus had about 50 to 60 teeth.

Assuming this long neck had a mouth on one end and a stomach on the other... actually, I don't think that one sauropod would strip all of the leaves off a tree. Diplodocus-like sauropods ate the lower leaves, and Brachiosaurus-like sauropods ate the higher leaves. This allowed several sauropods to live in the same environment.

Stegosaurus had 17 plates on its back and 4 spikes (the Thagomizer) on its tail.
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 19, 2001

How long is a long neck? How many teeth does a tyannosaurus rex have? How much time will it take a long neck to eat all the leaves of one whole tree? Are any dinosaurs bigger than 85 feet tall? How many spikes does a stegosaurus have?
from Karina L & Frances S, age 8 & 7, Miami, Florida, United States Of America; January 19, 2001

Are some dinosaurs 50236 feet?if some are what kind of
dinosaur is it?it can be a acanthoplis can it be?
from MARIA, age 16, MIAMI, GHJ, United states of Am; January 19, 2001

Sorry guys, but I'm having a bad day, there just has been a terrible accident in my apartment block: a lift technican was cleaning the lift shaft in my block yesterday when the lift car came down on him. It took emergency services about ten minutes to extract him (or what's left or him). Needless to say, he did not survive. Looks like I'll have to take the stairs for a while....
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 19, 2001

I kinda agree, there will be no point of contention here, it's hardly a fair fight.
from Honkie Tong, age 16, ?, ?, ?; January 19, 2001

This's an easy one to call, I don't think Giganotosaurus will put up too much of a fight at all. One one thing, the only advantage Giganotosaurus appears to have is size, and that's about it. T.Rex seems to outdo him in areas of speed, reflexes and agility, just like the Rancor bout.

Not to mention T.Rex was also better armed, having a jaw lined with railroad spikes designed to maul both flesh and bone, as when compaired to Giganotosaurus longer, but weaker jaw armed with small, allosaur-type teeth. Given T.Rex's superior bite force and it's incredible oral armanent, I suppose it could put up a lot more damage in a single bite.

Not to mention what we know of T.Rex appears to put it as an incredibily hard to kill animal, surviving bouts with other T.Rexes despite taking damage that would kill him. T.Rex was a nasty, head-on fighter. Unlike Giganotosaurus, given his weaker skull.

Not to mention T.Rex was also smarter than Giganotosaurus but as leas twofold, given it's complex and large brain which is typical of all coelurosaurs, as when compaired to Giganotosaurus' small, simple bananna sized(and shaped) brain. T.Rex benifited from having a larger neuron to muscle mass and would have been smarter and more nimble.

Given its deadily combination of advantages over Giganotosaurus, T.Rex would have made short work of the South American dinosaur.
I have no idea why people put the super-allosaurs as "meaner' than T.Rex, I certainly don't see so, factoring all this in. This is an easy one to call, I'll give it to T.Rex.

So once again, the South Americans find that they are not at the top of the deadilest-supercarnivore hierarchy, and are not the first to weep at failing to get the better of the Tyrannosaur. Boo Hoo.
from Josh, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 18, 2001

Results, T.Rex blasts Rancor! 1 out of 1 times!

Next versus bout: T.Rex vs a much hyped (and slightly bigger) South American Carnivore, Giganotosaurus!
from Josh, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 18, 2001

I like this Versus bout a lot... very original (whichever Crossover reader suggested it). Initially, I was inclined to give it to the Rancor all the way. The T-Rex is super reliant upon its massive jaw, wheras the Rancor monster has the jaw AND the awesome clawed hands. In a wrestling match, it would be all over. But wait! This argument is as weak as BBD's "raptor have hands so they're better" argument.

But speed is a real asset, and the disparity between these behemoths makes all the difference. I find Josh's argument very convincing... the Rancor just isn't very quick on its toes, and we've see the T-Rex make short work of some tough situations. With a speed of around 35 MPH (as we were told in Jurassic Park), the T-Rex can not only attack faster, but dodge better and flee if it has too.

Even if the Rancor gets a hold of the T-Rex,I don't think the dinosaur faces swift extinction. I think its biting prowess would easily maim the Rancor more than the Rancor can do to the Tyrant lizard in the process. That Rancor is spoiled anyway, used to small humanoid prey who aren't big enough or fierce enough to fight back (with a certain Jedi excepted, of course). Chances are, the Rancor's toast. This's a rare event as it's not everyday a real animal defeats a movie monster.

Weep on, fat bald man, weep on!
from Joseph, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 17, 2001

What is the best dinosaur that hunts and eats meat but doesn't like meat at all?
from Dorbell S., age 15, SF, CA, USA; January 17, 2001

How do they know glyptodon was a seperate species than doedicurus? Could it just be the tail was broken off glyptodon?
from Carchardontosaur, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 17, 2001

Hey, another Star Wars fan! T. rex may be able to beat the Rancor, but that big sea monster in Episode I could eat a pliosaur in one bite!
from Brad, age 14, Woodville, ON, Canada; January 17, 2001

Rancor vs. T-Rex

"Did anyone else hear that? That was an impact tremor. I... I'm rather alarmed here".

We've gotten a lot of great suggestions for T.Rex versus (fill in the space) bouts from many of our readers. And this was one that struck me as very interesting. What if Jabba the Hutt's favorite pet, the Rancor, went toe to claw with a Tyrannosaurus Rex like the kind we saw in either Lost World or Jurassic Park?

Let's start with the advantages each have against one another. Both have sharp teeth and powerful jaws. Both are also extremely large, powerful, vicious predators. The Rancor however seems to be slightly bigger than the T-Rex. His superior manual dexterity, with those huge claws on the end of each hand would also give him the upper hand (so to speak.) On the other hand, (all right... enough with the hand allusions already!) although we didn't see the Rancor in action too much in Return of the Jedi, what little we did see seemed to indicate that he was very slow and lumbering... almost sloth-like in his movements. The T-Rex appears to be clearly superior in the general area of speed, reflexes, and agility.

And besides, we saw in both the Jurassic Park films the T-Rex make short work of some pretty tough substances and machinery (especially vehicles.) This would indicate the T-Rex to be very strong and tough. Could you imagine, for instance, the T-Rex reeling back in pain if someone took a rock and started hitting him in the foot with it, the way Luke did to the Rancor's hand? The Rancor is clearly a much bigger cry-baby. And if a T-Rex's jaws can bite through metal, a bone jammed in between them probably wouldn't even slow the beast down the way it did the Rancor when he took so long to break it after Luke stuck a bone his mouth. In fact, our knowledge of the T-Rex has clearly shown that the animal would have to have had the ability to bite through bones quite easily because of him being a carnivorous predator going after and eating such large, powerful prey.

So even given the Rancor's (probably) superior size and manual dexterity, the T-Rex seems much more powerful, quick, tough and therefore more likely to win. I do admit though that that manual dexterity thing is a big plus on the side of the Rancor. I can just see him holding the T-Rex at bay by grabbing him around the throat, or holding his mouth closed, or something like that, and then taking him out accordingly. But the much slower Rancor would have to catch the T-Rex first and hope it doesn't get in a bite or two in before it can grab him.

Overall, this is a hard one to call. But in the end, I give it to the T-Rex. As I said, it's strength and speed versus dexterity and size. They pretty much even out, but the Rancor just seemed so wimpy in Return of the Jedi. He also seemed not only slow in movement, but slow on the uptake as well. That part where Luke runs between his legs towards the exit while the Rancor stupidly turns around and chases him a few seconds later is something I can't imagine the T-Rex letting slip by so easily. So reflexes and perceptiveness seem to be other major factors in favor of the T-Rex.

So the Rancor's keeper weeps once again at the sight of his pet being devoured by the T-Rex. Boo-Hoo.
from Josh, age ?, ?, ?, ?; January 17, 2001