Giganotosaurus - Dinosaurs A-Z Traditional Cache
Giganotosaurus - Dinosaurs A-Z
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Giganotosaurus - Dinosaurs A-Z
"G" Giganotosaurus
Dinosaurs A-Z will introduce you to some unique dinosaurs. I'm a big dinosaur fan and have read and researched many dinosaurs. Giganotosaurus is the seventh in my collection of dinosaur geocaches.
Giganotosaurus:
Description:
The skull of Giganotosaurus, although large, had a slender, elongated build. It showed rugose areas on the edges of the snout top and above the eye opening. The supratemporal openings were overhung by the edges of the skull roof where the jaw muscles of each side directly attached instead of meeting each other at a midline skull crest. The back of the skull as preserved is strongly inclined forwards, bringing the jaw joints far behind the attachment point of the neck. Giganotosaurus carolinii was slightly larger than Tyrannosaurus rex, but had a brain smaller than those of tyrannosaurids, its size estimated at 275 cm³. The teeth of Tyrannosaurus were longer and wider, and more variable in size. The teeth of Giganotosaurus were shorter, less variable and narrower than those of Tyrannosaurus, and were more adapted for slicing flesh. A well-developed olfactory region, encased in an ossified sphenethmoid, means that it probably had a good sense of smell. Together with these olfactory bulbs, the brain of Giganotosaurus was 18% longer than that of the related large theropod Carcharodontosaurus.
The shoulder blade was very short and thick, with sudden kinks in its shaft. The ischium had a paddle-shaped end; the thigh bone, 143 centimetres long in the holotype, had a head that was pointing relatively upwards. The mid dorsal vertebrae carried rather high spines.
Paleobiology:
Titanosaur fossils belonging to Andesaurus and Limaysaurus have been recovered near the remains of Giganotosaurus, leading to speculation that these carnivores may have preyed on the giant herbivores. Fossils of the related carcharodontosaurid Mapusaurus grouped closely together may indicate pack hunting, a behavior that could possibly extend to Giganotosaurus itself.
Blanco and Mazzetta (2001) estimated that for Giganotosaurus a growing imbalance when increasing its velocity would pose an upper limit of 14 metres per second (50 km/h; 31 mph) to its running speed, after which minimal stability would have been lost.
In 2005 François Therrien e.a. estimated that the bite force of Giganotosaurus was three times less than that of Tyrannosaurus and that the lower jaws were optimised for inflicting slicing wounds; the point of the mandibula was reinforced to this purpose with a "chin" and broadened to handle smaller prey
(Source Wikipedia.com)
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Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
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Lbh pbhyq yvpx guvf pnpur vs lbhe jrer n Tvtnabgbfnhehf, Lzzz :)
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