If you assume that there is life out there, is it possible that some life form on another planet is...really really huge? Like, much bigger than anything on earth? Why / why not? tl;dr could aliens be giants?

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Anonymous Mon Oct 25 20:37:17 2010 No.1951578 [Reply] [Original]

If you assume that there is life out there, is it possible that some life form on another planet is...really really huge? Like, much bigger than anything on earth? Why / why not?

tl;dr could aliens be giants?

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 20:39:17 2010 No.1951592 yes they could possibly be giants /thread

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 20:39:17 2010 No.1951588 >>1951578 Laws of scaling and so on... They'd have to be made of something much stronger than bones and flesh of the organisms on Earth.

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 20:39:17 2010 No.1951594 Depends on size of the planet (gravity) and the density of the atmosphere.

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 20:41:17 2010 No.1951607 I don't think we're at liberty to establish conditionals with our current lack of knowledge and technological limits. Philosophically, yes, if they exist, they could be giants. But so what?

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 20:43:17 2010 No.1951618 >>1951607 >But so what? So that'd be SWEEEEEEEEEET

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 20:46:17 2010 No.1951629 wow your witty OP. "they might be giants" how long did it take you to think that one up and then transcribe it here in a serious tone?

Anonymous Mon Oct 25 20:47:17 2010 No.1951639

In general, no.

There's something called the "Scale Law". Using this concept we can pretty much rule out the existence of huge creatures. Here's why:

Take King Kong for example. King Kong wouldn't have been able to do much damage, he wouldn't even be able to walk. If take a normal ape and increase his size 10 times his volume will increase by 10x10x10, or 1000, this means he would be 1000 times heavier, but his strength which is relative to bones and muscles only goes up by the square, so 10x10 = 100. He would be 1000 times heavier, but only 100 times stronger, therefore being unable to move.

This law can also be applied to surface area and the relative heat loss. Using these rules we can calculate rough estimates for what alien life would potentially look like, and extremely large creatures doesn't fit. More likely, they would be similar in size to us.

Mr. Hyde !!cPIqDLBbmTg Mon Oct 25 20:47:17 2010 No.1951647

Absolutely, OP.

Remember the fundamental building blocks of life that we know of on Earth are mostly there because of chance and it's what we had to work with.

Other planets would have other resources and different probable outcomes, so aliens could be really fast or really slow, or really big or really small. In the most likely scenario, an alien is different from us in ways not even conceivable.

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 20:48:17 2010 No.1951648 >>1951629 NOPE serious question. But I did realize it afterward.

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 20:48:17 2010 No.1951654 OP this question is answered fictionally in a hard science fiction film called Sliver.

Anonymous Mon Oct 25 20:49:17 2010 No.1951656

We can observe and answer your questions dealing strictly with the life we can observe on earth. Compare the the size of an elephant (largest land animal) to the Blue Whale (largest known animal). The whale is in an atmosphere that can support much much larger animals without them being crushed by their own weight, if you were to put a whale on land, it would die very quickly because it would crush it's own organs. So yes, there are certain environments that can support much larger forms of life.

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 20:49:17 2010 No.1951657 this >>1951607 was already refuted by this >>1951639 Other forms of life don't have to be carbon based. And these so-called laws only work as applied to the theories we are still trying to prove.

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 20:50:17 2010 No.1951664 >>1951654 Actually that's not the films name, which I've forgotten. Sorry.

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 21:17:17 2010 No.1951808 >>1951657 I didn't say it was absolute, it was just our best guess.

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 21:18:17 2010 No.1951817 Yes, probably on a planet with lower gravity than ours.

Anonymous Mon Oct 25 22:32:17 2010 No.1952216

this fagot argument.

isnt bone designed to support a shit load more weight than steel girders?

fuck you midgets, trying to bring everything down to your level.

also recently they said it's 100% possibility there's life on some planet.

and also there were giants on earth previously.

also, until you fagots can comprehend the true nature of evolution [convolution] you're all going to say dumb fuck things that you will have to retract eventually.

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 22:37:17 2010 No.1952252 >>1951639 but his strength which is relative to bones and >muscles only goes up by the square why?

Anonymous Mon Oct 25 22:39:17 2010 No.1952261

Not terribly likely OP. Cope's Rule holds true in unlimited environments lacking concentrated fodder, however....

Gigantic organisms have smaller populations and less diversity (like ginormous dinosaurs, or perhaps elephants and blue whales today) so they're less likely to survive than smaller animals over a long enough period of time.

However if the environment offered very few extinction-level pressures, and not much concentrate food, then it's quite likely that alien life would be huge. It's hard to imagine evolution progressing much in such environments though.

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 22:39:17 2010 No.1952269 this is a really stupid argument/question because earth had giant creatures.... like brontosaurus. so imagine if they had human brains and thumbs. tada giant aliens

Anonymous Mon Oct 25 22:40:17 2010 No.1952271

>>1951588
This.

But if you allow for dense atmospheres (or oceans), or lower gravity, these factors would all allow much larger organisms.

The main problems are alluded to in >>1951588
Mass goes as linear size cubed, while cross-sectional areas go as linear size squared. Things like bone and muscle strength go as area, while mass goes as volume, so that entire model breaks down eventually.

This is why you will never see ants the size of skyscrapers on Earth, unless they're so drastically redesigned that they aren't ants anymore. Exoskeletons are only viable at small scales with our gravity and atmospheric density.

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 22:40:17 2010 No.1952273 >>1951657 >Other forms of life don't have to be carbon based yes they do

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 22:41:17 2010 No.1952276 Why not? Gravity.

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 22:41:17 2010 No.1952277 >>1952269 brontosaurus... loled.

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 22:42:17 2010 No.1952290 >>1952277 Apatosaurus then?

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 22:43:17 2010 No.1952297 >>1952269 This anon has a solid point, biomechanics, gravity, thermodynamics were all NOT problems for sauropod dinosaurs... And those were some gigantic critters.

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 22:44:17 2010 No.1952301 >>1952269 pretty much would expect dinosaurs to be the upper limit, shit was big back then.

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 22:45:17 2010 No.1952310 >>1952301 This. But OP's pic a step beyond any known land animal. You get bigger ones in the ocean because bouyancy helps support the mass (less effective weight).

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 22:45:17 2010 No.1952307 >>1952290 Yeah, it's all good, just made me giggle. Your point is solid though.

Anonymous Mon Oct 25 22:47:17 2010 No.1952322

Does anyone know a website/book that hypothesizes the structures of alien life? I'm talking about something along the lines of Sagan's sinkers and floaters on Jupiter, not science fiction.

Somebody has had to have put a lot of thought into this and come up with something plausible.

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 22:48:17 2010 No.1952330 >>1952297 still considerably smaller (in overall volume) than the Blue Whale inb4: Amphicoelias (it didn't real! it was Cope's exaggeration over a destroyed fossil) and it's not that they had any impressive mobility

Anonymous Mon Oct 25 22:50:17 2010 No.1952334

>>1952273
Nope, they don't.
Of course, with your limited scope of the universe having only heard of or dealt with carbon based life you would assume carbon is a requirement. But there are other elements that can bond like carbon does.
Remember how aliens are supposed to be nothing like humans would imagine? Their building blocks aren't exempt.

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 22:51:17 2010 No.1952339 >>1952322 There have been some programs that try to talk about realistic hypothetical alien life. There's "The Future is Wild", but that's about hypothetical Terran (Earth) life. There's an alien one too, but I've forgotten the name.

Anonymous Mon Oct 25 22:54:17 2010 No.1952353

>>1952334
There are reasons for holding the claim of non-carbon-based-life to a very high level of scrutiny.

Life itself depends on structures and processes that are stable enough to persist, but unstable and varied enough to adapt. Carbon chemistry fits the bill incredibly well for the temperature range in the biosphere.

If you want something else to meet the criteria of patterns that are stable but not TOO stable, then you need to explore some vastly different conditions - temperature, pressure, etc.

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 22:59:17 2010 No.1952365 yeah, but you'd need something that was either 1. much stronger bone/flesh because of weight support problems 2. floating in liquid 3. floating in the air 4. in very low gravity (or some combination of these)

Anonymous Mon Oct 25 23:15:17 2010 No.1952437

>>1952330
I used to doubt Cope's measurements until I started looking at "Saurophaganax" and "Epanterias."

It seems pretty likely to me that the vast majority of specimens we collect will be of the most common size for a given organism, and that there will exist much rarer fossils somewhere that represent extremes of size for the same organisms...

And thus extremely small or extremely large specimens might certainly exist, but are unlikely to be discovered. Of course there's preservation and collection biases at work, but I don't entirely discount Cope, as he wasn't known to be dishonest on that scale.

It's possible all the largest sauropods we've collected are sort-of average, and much larger ones will in time be found. There's no particularly strong hypothesis yet offered for why we should think they couldn't have grown significantly bigger.

Anonymous Mon Oct 25 23:20:17 2010 No.1952463

>>1952437
>There's no particularly strong hypothesis yet offered for why we should think they couldn't have grown significantly bigger.
Other than the general arguments about larger organisms being progressively less viable, both as individuals and as a species (diversity/population/territory issues).

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 23:23:50 2010 No.1952477 Why is anyone saying no? What if the gravity is 1/4 that of the gravity on earth? Wouldn't the size threshold for living creatures be at least 4 times that on earth? So we could have things about 4 times the size of dinosaurs, right?

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 23:25:17 2010 No.1952484 >>1952463 Agreed. But those general rules seem to have been violated with some success and regularity throughout the Kimmeridgian-Tithonian. On average they should hold true, but that doesn't preclude the possibility of extreme individual growth.

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 23:25:17 2010 No.1952488 >>1952477 If you'd read the thread, you'd know that this has been said multiple times.

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 23:26:17 2010 No.1952492 >>1952484 Sure, there's always a tail on the bell curve. But the center of the curve is where it is for a reason.

Anonymous Mon Oct 25 23:27:50 2010 No.1952502 [DELETED]

>>1952488
If I'd read the thread, I would have wasted a lot of time and not had the satisfaction of coming to that conclusion on my own and telling everyone else.

I just skimmed over the thread and saw lots of scientific jargon and decided not to read it.

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 23:29:17 2010 No.1952509 >>1952477 The biomechanical argument may be moot, but the thermal, diversity and population size arguments must still be considered. Gigantic organisms are certainly possible, but not particularly likely...

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 23:32:17 2010 No.1952524 >>1952492 Again, agreed. So was Cope lying about his ginormous sauropod? Or is it possible he found an extreme individual?

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 23:36:17 2010 No.1952541 >>1952524 I wouldn't call it impossible unless it was clearly demonstrated that the require strengths exceeded any known intermolecular bond in organic chemistry. Like in bone structure.

Anonymous Mon Oct 25 23:38:17 2010 No.1952551

for many millions of years...

dinosaurs were never bigger than a horse/cow...

then there was an explosion of "gigantism" amongst dinosaur genetics..

"overnight" (in evolutionary terms) multiple DIFFERENT species of dinosaurs began evolving into gigantic huge phenotypes...

I remember watching a show about this...

somehow, it has to do with this fossilized Sink-Hole they found, in which they found the fossilized skeletons of a bunch of different "Raptor" like dinosaurs...

all stacked on top of one another (Iike they all fell into a narrow, deep hole, and just fell one on top of another)

I think they used it as a chronological timeline of the evolution of the "gigantic" phenotype in dinosaur genetics.
My point:

gigantism can become a dominant trait no matter the circumstances...

it was a fluke/mutation that became extremely well suited for the specific environment of the time.

and of all prototypical examples of mutation/evolution...

this is one of the best ones

Anonymous Mon Oct 25 23:39:17 2010 No.1952557

>>1952551

oh yeah, now I remember...

the sink-hole was important because they found a bunch of skeletons of precursors to T-Rex (which basically look almost exactly like Raptors, only with slightly larger heads and bodies)...

this was before T-rex existed... and they posited that this gigantic trait was super quickly diffused into the overall dinosaur population.

Anonymous Mon Oct 25 23:41:17 2010 No.1952571

A planet with a lower mass is less likely to give rise to life because it will have a shorter geologic lifespan. Once plate tectonics stops, life is pretty much screwed. It took about 4 billion years for life to really start going on Earth, and we've only about a billion more to go before the Earth stops.

A smaller planet would have to have extremely favorable conditions to give rise to life quick enough to diversify and grow large, and you can't get much more favorable than Earth, which took awhile. Some other established civilization would have to have terraformed it shortly after the planet had cooled enough and formed feldspathic crust.

I'm just going by how the Earth works. Chances are, it's not applicable. The geologies of other rocks out there like Venus and Titan are crazy as fuck.

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 23:42:17 2010 No.1952577 >>1952353 That's because you think of life as it is on Earth and the definition of life is not broad enough.

Anonymous Mon Oct 25 23:45:17 2010 No.1952589

>>1952541
Most adult sauropod femora I've looked at are about 40% cancellous tissue, indicating that even at adult sizes they didn't max out mechanical limits of bone. Undoubtedly the cancellous portion added strength and reduced weight, but it seems like if they were approaching some biomechanical limit the cancellous percentage would be smaller. I don't know though, perhaps I'm thinking backwards.

Anonymous Mon Oct 25 23:51:17 2010 No.1952622
File: 284 KB, 3060x647, Longest_dinosaurs1.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>1952437
>It seems pretty likely to me that the vast majority of specimens we collect will be of the most common size for a given organism, and that there will exist much rarer fossils
somewhere that represent extremes of size for the same organisms...

Iwanttobelieve.jpg

pardon my sarcasm against a very reasonable and partially valid argument but I must point out some things:

1) try to recall the initial size estimates for Diplodocus hallorum (originally Seismosaurus), 42-56 meters, suspiciously similar to Amphicoelias fragillimus isn't it?

2) Consider the size difference between related closely genera or species like the ones you mentioned. We have a shitload of Allosaurus fragilis with a maximum length of about 9 meters. Both Saurophaganax and Epanterias are about +1/3 longer. Same goes for Diplodocus longus (27m) / Diplodocus hallorum (35 m) and Apatosaurus (22m) Supersaurus (33 m, this one +1/2 larger) pairs.

3) The size estimate for Amphicoelias altus was in the same league with most typical Diplodocus specimens. So I think that any rational estimate would put the size of its sister species in about the same class with Diplodocus hallorum.

4) We now many titanosaurian-macronaria genera that easily outclass all diplodocomorpha we know in size. Yet A. fragillimus magically appears to to outclass them all making a league of its own. Just look at the picture... it's like a FIND THE MISTAKE quiz.

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 23:52:17 2010 No.1952628 >>1952252 SCIENCE! and because the cross section of muscles and bones only increase squared. They only grow in 2 directions, while the volume grows in all three.

>>	Anonymous Mon Oct 25 23:57:17 2010 No.1952649 >>1952628 >They only grow in 2 directions how is that so?

Anonymous Tue Oct 26 00:04:17 2010 No.1952677

>>1952622
True, but my point is that if we compare Saurophaganax and Epanterias to the average A. fragilis find rather than the maximum we get very different results.

Adult A. fragilis may have been 8-9m on average, but a survey of about 80 specimens collected produces an average closer to 6m.

At that rate size estimates for Epanterias and Saurophaganax are much closer to the sauropod disparity we see with Amphicoelias.

Though I guess my argument may be false since the sauropods compared for the picture were probably maximums rather than averages... I'll have to see where the data came from.

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 26 00:04:17 2010 No.1952678 we are giants compared to unicellular organisms its all a question of scales

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 26 00:05:17 2010 No.1952682 >>1952649 Because its a cross section.

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 26 00:07:17 2010 No.1952690 File: 66 KB, 261x275, 1267945527134.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>1952649 A cross section is 2D! DURRRRRRR http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_section_(geometry)

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 26 00:08:17 2010 No.1952700 Holy shit, /sci/ is like the epitome of a no fun zone

Anonymous Tue Oct 26 00:13:17 2010 No.1952719

>>1952677
>>1952677
>Adult A. fragilis may have been 8-9m on average, but a survey of about 80 specimens collected produces an average closer to 6m.
>At that rate size estimates for Epanterias and Saurophaganax are much closer to the sauropod disparity we see with Amphicoelias

yes but allosaurids being predators were easily subjected to malnutrition, so their size was dependant to the availability of pray and the presence of conspecific competitors

almost all conspecific specimens of sauropods of the same age were about the same size

Anonymous Tue Oct 26 00:20:17 2010 No.1952744

It's possible for biochemistry to form in the nebulaic carbon compounds outside of any planetary atmosphere. Imagine life-entities larger than our solar system, yeah? They'd hardly be animals as we know imagine them, but matter imbued with consciousness no less.

Anonymous Tue Oct 26 00:22:17 2010 No.1952746

>>1952719
Hmmm,
I kinda doubt that, the size homogeneity in adult conspecific sauropods, but I'd need to haul out some books to check it...

It sucks that most adult Morrison sauropods aren't collected. I suppose that's where our argument could be answered.

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 26 00:29:17 2010 No.1952777 >>1952746 yes I must admit myself that this was quite arbitrary

Anonymous Tue Oct 26 01:05:17 2010 No.1952919

>>1952777
Meh, the largest spread I'm finding is ~50% in Camarasaurus supremis and C. lentis which seem to be diagnosed largely based on size and secondarily on some overlapping stratigraphy...

I guess if we say homogenous within ~15% it would be fair. That puts Cope way out with a femur length ~200% of known maximums. The gracile nature of the femur bothers me some, it seems to me size scaling can't be equivalent in animals of different morphology...

Ah well, I guess I want to believe Cope was honest more than anything else.

Anonymous Tue Oct 26 02:27:17 2010 No.1953155

>>1952919
It's not about academic dishonesty. After all with the bone wars it was extremely risky for his rep.

Measurment fuckups happen all the time even in our time, see "Seismosaurus" and many freshly discovered sauropods. Also enthusiasm and confirmation bias are rather common when huge-ass incarnations of awesome are the subject of the field.

Also Cope described the fossil as very fragile, I geuss that maybe he was reluctant to handle it....

: \

Anonymous Tue Oct 26 02:42:17 2010 No.1953183

>>1952919
>it seems to me size scaling can't be equivalent in animals of different morphology.

inorait?

but to be fair it doesn't seem necessary that the bones of the related genera had reached the limit of their structural integrity

for example Apatosaurus' bones seemed to be more robust than Diplodocus which was equivalent in overall size and even Supersaurus which was more closely related and by far larger

so theremight be hope...

Anonymous Tue Oct 26 02:53:17 2010 No.1953202

>>1953155
Yeah, true that. I'm reminded of Mantell and Ownen's initial size estimates of 200 feet for Iguanodon - though they had far less information to work with.

I guess the strongest line of argument is the fact that we're searching and sampling the Morrison Formation, including Marsh and Cope's old quarries, in a much larger manner than ever before - and we still haven't found any more of that specimen or any other approaching that size. Collection biases currently seem to favor tiny fossils, but it seems a huge animal would be more likely to be exposed and noticed, and excavated.

But then we wouldn't hunt for fossils if we didn't think there was at least a possibility of finding something gloriously new and amazing.

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 26 03:05:17 2010 No.1953229 >>1953202 >200 feet for Iguanodon meanwhile in Tokyo...

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 26 03:06:17 2010 No.1953233 1. Alien species finds out how to bio-engineer their bodies to have nano-fiber muscles and graphene-reinforced bones which also allow for nearly instantaneous nerve conductivity 2. ???

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 26 03:10:17 2010 No.1953241 Depends on the home planet. If the planet is smaller and gravity weaker then much bigger life forms can evolve, but if the planet is huge with a stronger gravity then we'll only find small creatures.

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 26 03:10:17 2010 No.1953242 >>1951629 >your Also I don't think you know what "witty" means.

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 26 03:11:17 2010 No.1953244 >>1953229 Lol'ed!

Anonymous Tue Oct 26 03:13:17 2010 No.1953250

>>1953202
>we didn't think there was at least a possibility of finding something gloriously new and amazing
well... even if we have hit the upper size limit I would totally gasm to the discovery of a pack of Giganotosaurus-sized Epanterias gang-praying upon a D. hallorum or a Supersaurus... or now that I think of it... why not both? while they were performing intergeneric mating... with a hybrid from previous mating on their side!

FUCK YEAH!

inb4: different subfamilies but False Killer Whales can succesfully reproduce with Bottlenose dolphins so it's my rigght to dream!

Anonymous Tue Oct 26 03:17:17 2010 No.1953260

Dinosaur size, yes
1 km long monsters? No. at least i dont think so

these things would need to be made out of something strong enough to withstand the gravity of an obviously massive planet, let alone hold the weight of itself. something life-based molecules we are made of definitely could not do.

plus a planet that size made of rock? life would not last long on such a planet.

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 26 03:23:17 2010 No.1953283 >>1953250 LOL Bakker is that you fucking with me again?! :D

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 26 03:38:17 2010 No.1953357 >>1953283 Don't matter, I have a question either way anon... Dubreuillosaurus valesdunensis... bifurcated basal tubera, yes or no? If yes... Allosaurus synapomorphy, yes or no?

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 26 04:01:17 2010 No.1953446 >>1953357 I am afraid taxonomy based on braincase anatomy is a bit too technical for a geology freshman, anon. : /

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 26 04:06:17 2010 No.1953458 File: 85 KB, 480x600, son-i-am-disappoint.jpg.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>1953446 inb4: too opiniated for a rookie I am ashamed...

Anonymous Tue Oct 26 04:12:17 2010 No.1953474

Ah damn, I was hoping we could shake up the Theropoda tonight... sauropods seem like too much of a mess to take on in casual conversation. I'm thinking we could use an unweighted cladistic analysis based on ALL theropod characters used in all studies, instead of the picking and choosing we usually go with.

Another day then. Geology rocks!

The ThunderBird !!m4ANrdZXfVL Tue Oct 26 04:21:17 2010 No.1953489

>>1951578
Certainly, all that is required is a planet/moon with lower gravity than Earth. However, they would be weaker than humans. See Avatar: low-G moon -> giant Na'vi (however, humans would be significantly stronger there, no need for power armor aside from life support. Cue marine jumping up, and punching a Na'vi in the face hard enough to knock it down. That would have been the crowning moment of awesome for that movie).

Conversely, the popularly portrayed Grays/Asgards probably hail from a high-G planet, hence their short stature. However, they could probably seriously mess us up with fists alone, since they are accustomed to much greater forces than us.

Anonymous Tue Oct 26 04:22:17 2010 No.1953492

>>1953474
It was my pleasure, anon. I'll try to scavenge whatever related journal my university has access to in hope of more interesting conversation.

The irony of this: The only dinosaur "fossil" my backwater university has is the replica of an Allosaurus fragilis skull...

also:
>we could use an unweighted cladistic analysis based on ALL theropod characters used in all studies
THAT'S A HELLLOT OF ORNITHOLOGY ANON!!1

Anonymous Tue Oct 26 04:37:17 2010 No.1953525
File: 1.18 MB, 2273x2448, P7040024.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>1953492
LOL
I forgot my disclamatory "nonavian"! Whatever that means anymore, used to be we could just chop it off at the pygostyle...

I may have that same Al skull, if it's a replica after Madson like most seem to be :)

Anonymous Tue Oct 26 04:54:17 2010 No.1953557
File: 41 KB, 464x333, image_exp_dino075.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>1953525
It looks like this, both at color and proportions, though this one in the picture seems a bit vertically compressed.

Dunno what specimen is based on, but it looks awfully familiar.

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 26 04:56:17 2010 No.1953562 >>1953557 also I am under the impression that its lacrimal horns are not that pronounced as in the picture

Anonymous Tue Oct 26 05:02:17 2010 No.1953579

>>1953557
That looks like one of Madson's Cleveland-Lloyd chimeras... It's got larger lacrimal horns than average for his skulls, but it's missing the vomer, which clearly dates it as one of his....

He made several though, so it's hard to say which skull exactly it was. All of them were composites from several individuals.

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 26 05:05:17 2010 No.1953589 File: 71 KB, 799x622, 1.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] How big do you want?

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 26 05:06:17 2010 No.1953594 File: 2 KB, 126x126, 1268793146501.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>1953579 >All of them were composites from several individuals. Allosaurus fragilis? moar like Allosaurus frankenilis, amairait?

Anonymous Tue Oct 26 05:10:17 2010 No.1953606

>>1953557
I think you and I posted pictures of the same skull... looking at maxillary tooth rows and I'm almost certain...

The pic I posted is one of Madson's, a cast at the Museum of Western Colorado... the original is at BYU last I heard...

Crazinesssss!

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 26 05:10:17 2010 No.1953608 >>1953594 Lulz...yepsir!

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 26 05:13:17 2010 No.1953612 File: 3 KB, 149x145, archelon guy.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>1953589 >my face when noticed that Discoworld turtle seems moar like a protostegid than a cheloniid

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 26 05:17:17 2010 No.1953623 >>1953606 nah! I think that the dentary teeth in yours are considerably larger.

Anonymous Tue Oct 26 05:25:17 2010 No.1953637

Square cube law. Unless the gravity is significantly lower, being too large leads to all sorts of problems with holding heat, fragility, and metabolism. There's a reason elephants can't survive a fall of a few feet, eats constantly, and has those ears to let off heat.

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 26 05:32:17 2010 No.1953652 >>1953612 >Discoworld Did you do that on purpose?

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 26 05:34:17 2010 No.1953660 >>1953623 Yeah, you're right... plus mine has a taller palatine process of the pterygoid though that's not visible in my pic... Similar lacrimal height and missing vomers though.

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 26 05:35:17 2010 No.1953664 File: 265 KB, 1190x1258, discofossil grim's new high score.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>1953589

>>	Anonymous Tue Oct 26 05:40:17 2010 No.1953678 >>1953652 unfortunately yes

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