Science Memes

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T. rex (mander.xyz)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] Blue_Morpho 8 points 3 months ago (2 children)

That's not a link to the actual paper. The King of the Hill meme above claims that the actual paper says that physical limits apply to maximum size. This implies the article misrepresents the research paper.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

Ah, I get it now. Thanks!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I don’t think that’s what the meme is claiming.

I think instead it’s just claiming that all fossils have the same implied increase in maximum size implied by the paper, not just T rex.

I’m guessing the illiterate paleo fans were excited that maybe T rex was king of the dinosaurs again, but the logic fails if all the dinosaurs get bigger max sizes…

[–] Blue_Morpho 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

If that were the case then the first sentence wouldn't claim that there are physical limits.

I dug up the paper.

"Biomechanical and ecological limitations notwithstanding, we estimate that the absolute largest T. rex may have been 70% more massive than the currently largest known specimen (~15,000 vs. ~8800 kg)."

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.11658

That is the paper says, if we ignore biomechanical limits, statistically there could be a T-Rex that's 70% bigger than what we have already found.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

That does make sense, though I read it as:

[the new, expanded] upper body size limits…

Is how I read it, but your interpretation works well too, so I don’t really know now.