Holotype skeleton with reconstructed skull, arm, and feet, on the floor in Ernesto Bachmann Paleontological Museum
Giganotosaurus is thought to have been the apex predator of its ecosystem, and it may have fed on juvenile sauropod dinosaurs. The "chin" may have helped in resisting stress when a bite was delivered against prey. It would have been capable of closing its jaws quickly, capturing and bringing down prey by delivering powerful bites. It may have been relatively fast moving, with a calculated maximal running speed of 14 m/s (50 km/h 31 mph).
Giganotosaurus is thought to have been homeothermic (a type of " warm-bloodedness"), with a metabolism between that of a mammal and a reptile, which would have enabled fast growth. Part of the family Carcharodontosauridae, Giganotosaurus is one of the most completely known members of the group, which includes other very large theropods, such as the closely related Mapusaurus and Carcharodontosaurus. The neck was strong and the pectoral girdle proportionally small. The teeth were compressed sideways and had serrations. The front of the lower jaw was flattened, and had a downwards projecting process (or "chin") at the tip. The skull was low, with rugose (rough and wrinkled) nasal bones and a ridge-like crest on the lacrimal bone in front of the eye. Some researchers have found the animal to be larger than Tyrannosaurus, which has historically been considered the largest theropod, while others have found them to be roughly equal in size, and the largest size estimates for Giganotosaurus exaggerated. The dentary bone that belonged to a supposedly larger individual has been used to extrapolate a length of 13.2 m (43 ft). Estimates for the most complete specimen range from a length of 12 to 13 m (39 to 43 ft), a skull 1.53 to 1.80 m (5.0 to 5.9 ft) in length, and a weight of 4.2 to 13.8 t (4.6 to 15.2 short tons). Giganotosaurus was one of the largest known terrestrial carnivores, but the exact size has been hard to determine due to the incompleteness of the remains found so far. The genus attracted much interest and became part of a scientific debate about the maximum sizes of theropod dinosaurs. A dentary bone, a tooth and some tracks, discovered before the holotype, were later assigned to this animal. The animal was named Giganotosaurus carolinii in 1995 the genus name translates as "giant southern lizard" and the specific name honors the discoverer, Rubén D. The holotype specimen was discovered in the Candeleros Formation of Patagonia in 1993, and is almost 70% complete. Idk about you guys (my opinion), but I don’t think they’re off to that great of a start, personally.Īll of this superfluous backstory just to set up a fight at the end… I can’t say I’m sold.Giganotosaurus ( / ˌ dʒ aɪ ɡ ə ˌ n oʊ t ə ˈ s ɔː r ə s/ JY-gə- NOH-tə- SOR-əs ) is a genus of theropod dinosaur that lived in what is now Argentina, during the early Cenomanian age of the Late Cretaceous period, approximately 99.6 to 97 million years ago. I mean all they had to do is use the JWE design and make tweaks here and there, which would have made for a much more fluid design, but they decided to give it a look that seems to be an overdraft from Primeval or Terra Nova. I’m also not the biggest fan of the Giga’s design… it’s too… busy? Like they tried to hard to make it look badass with the exaggerated eye crests and back spines and it’s more akin to Godzilla than anything. I suppose we are to believe it’s set in North America, but there 3 dinosaurs that aren’t North American straight out the gate such as Dreadnoughtus and Giganotosaurus (South American) and Iguanadon (European) and what’s supposed to be an Oviraptor (Mongolian). I’m not much a fan of how they decided to add *some* scientific accuracy by adding feathers to the T-Rex… and then completely disregard all of the other inaccuracies of the rest of the scene. S-Rex Compsognathus Member 75 XP Jun-25-2021 10:31 AM