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TheTastiestofMeats t1_jcd03d4 wrote

I'm not a Dinosaurian but based on the drawing this guy looks too goofy to be real

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SuspiciousStable9649 t1_jcd3foj wrote

I think somebody put too many neck bones together. From the picture they robbed the tail.

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iHateFairyType t1_jcf3l06 wrote

The picture is quite awkward perspective. If you look at some other drawings they have a really long tail too

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sirfuzzitoes t1_jcdi4ze wrote

The beautiful physics of a cantilever. I think. I never actually took any physics course of study.

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timojenbin t1_jcedyy5 wrote

No amount of CG is going to make that believable.

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ratherstayback t1_jcueeys wrote

> I'm not a Dinosaurian

I think, the correct term is Dinosaurologist.

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Traumfahrer t1_jcdm83t wrote

No one knows how high the Hollywood sign is and from the imagery of it, it appears much smaller than it is.

Who the f in a science based setting thinks it is a good reference point?

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Leemour t1_jcewyuf wrote

It's for the US muggles, who don't know metric.

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EarthSolar t1_jci0zj3 wrote

Good thing the actual length of the neck is written right at the beginning of the article, which makes zero mention of the ‘Hollywood sign’!

No one reads the god damn article.

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sirfuzzitoes t1_jcdhyuj wrote

It never fails to crack me up when things are expressed in metric and American. The height of the Hollywood sign? How many standard light switch heights is that? Plus or minus a panini press.

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Thunderbolt294 t1_jcf7chz wrote

It's about a regulation MLB field minus a Plymouth voyager plus 3 air fryers

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Fisticus1 t1_jcfwys3 wrote

What’s even crazier is that even as an American I have no damn clue how tall the Hollywood sign is and at this point I’m too stubborn to look it up. I know I’m not alone too.

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sooprvylyn t1_jcd1p6u wrote

That artist rendering doesnt look like an animal that wouldnt tip over

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ConqueredCorn t1_jcdq93x wrote

Unless it was going for the giraffe like physique with very high star leafs to reach

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could_use_a_snack t1_jce78s6 wrote

Maybe this wouldn't be a possibility but, since dinosaurs are related to birds, why do we assume they kept their necks stretched out like that. Swans don't. Either do geese.

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ConqueredCorn t1_jcebp8a wrote

I think the tail tells the story. Its all for balance so they have such large tails it has to be a counter weight for something

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could_use_a_snack t1_jcebu92 wrote

I thought the long tails were for sliding down after your shift at the quarry is over.

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spinbutton t1_jcexdpd wrote

The structure of the bones can tell us the shape of the neck. But this reconstruction is not based on the full skeleton just some neck bones and skull. The size estimate is extrapolated from some.pretty meager data. I'd take it with a grain of salt

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soda-jerk t1_jcf23zh wrote

We don't have full skeletons of these animals, so things like how they held their necks is still debated among scientists.

We see sauropods depicted this way all the time, because it's the most widely accepted theory on how they looked, based on the information we do have on them, as well as comparisons with similar modern-day animals.

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morrowwm t1_jcd725t wrote

Don't know the Hollywood sign. What's that in bananas?

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thejml2000 t1_jcda4ry wrote

Apparently, the sign is 45’ or 13.7m tall. Apparently bananas tend to be between 7” and 8” in length, so, if we take 7.5”, that’s 72 bananas high.

Or about 0.9 of an Olympic swimming pool diving board to the bottom (5m deep+10m board height)

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morrowwm t1_jcdak33 wrote

Ex-competitive swimmer here. Olympic size is 50 metres.

However, the high Olympic diving platform is 10 metres, or about 50 bananas.

Long neck on them.

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thejml2000 t1_jcdat9j wrote

Yeah, that’s what I was thinking of, but not what I typed. I’ll fix that.

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morrowwm t1_jcdkihm wrote

Ha ha, don't mind me. Motels advertising "an Olympic size pool" trigger me.

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Rickshmitt t1_jcdkas9 wrote

Whos deciding on these units of measurement. Hollywood sign, a pool..from the diving board to the bottom?!

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thejml2000 t1_jcdnfuj wrote

Probably the Board for Obtuse and Obfuscated Measurements. Aka BOOM.

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marketrent OP t1_jcd05dz wrote

Findings in title quoted from the linked content^1,2 about research funded by numerous organizations, including the United States National Science Foundation, The Royal Society of London, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

From the linked summary:^1

>Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum was discovered in approximately 162-million-year-old rocks from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of northwest China in 1987 by the China–Canada Dinosaur Project team, for which it was named in 1993.

>Although Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum is known only from a handful of bones from the neck and skull, the research team was able to reconstruct its evolutionary relationships and thus make comparisons to the unusually complete skeletons of its closest relatives.

>This allowed them to conclude that Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum had a neck approximately 15.1 meters long, the longest of any known sauropod.

>Lead author Dr Andrew J. Moore, Stony Brook University palaeontologist, said, ‘All sauropods were big, but jaw-droppingly long necks didn’t evolve just once.

>‘Mamenchisaurids are important because they pushed the limits on how long a neck can be and were the first lineage of sauropods to do so. With a 15-metre-long neck, it looks like Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum might be a record-holder – at least until something longer is discovered.’

ETA:

>The question of how sauropods managed to evolve such long necks and large bodies without collapsing under their own weight has puzzled scientists since their discovery.

>When studying Mamenchisaurus the team were able to use computed-tomography (CT) scanning to reveal that the vertebrae were lightweight and hollow with air spaces comprising about 69–77% of their volume, similar to the lightly built skeletons of birds.

>However, such featherweight skeletons would also be more prone to injury. To combat this Mamenchisaurus had 4-metre-long rod-like neck ribs, bony extensions of the vertebrae that created overlapping bundles of rods on either side of the neck.

>These bundles would have stiffened the neck of Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum, increasing its stability.

^1 New fossil analysis reveals dinosaur with the longest neck of any animal ever, 15 Mar. 2023, https://www.nhm.ac.uk/press-office/press-releases/new-fossil-analysis-reveals-dinosaur-with-the-longest-neck-of-an.html

^2 Andrew J. Moore, Paul M. Barrett, Paul Upchurch, Chun-Chi Liao, Yong Ye, Baoqiao Hao & Xing Xu (2023) Re-assessment of the Late Jurassic eusauropod Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum Russell and Zheng, 1993, and the evolution of exceptionally long necks in mamenchisaurids, Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, 21:1, https://doi.org/10.1080/14772019.2023.2171818

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877-Cash-Meow t1_jcd67on wrote

i think basic physics can demonstrate this rendering to be misleading. more mass in the neck would make this dude tip over constantly

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CurtisLeow t1_jcdz6cq wrote

The neck was filled with air sacs, like the neck of a swan. The neck was much lighter than it looked.

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Gaskii t1_jce519w wrote

We're moving away from football fields to Hollywood signs now I see

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cerreur t1_jcevkez wrote

I've never been to Hollywood so I have no fuckin' clue how tall the sign is.
Just use a bus or something for comparison.

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Tirriss t1_jcf1bfz wrote

Where would this sauropod wear his tie? At the top just below the head or at the bottom of the neck?

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crilen t1_jceqi7v wrote

What a goofy dumb looking thing

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rhymeswithcars t1_jcezvb1 wrote

”Let’s use something very few people have seen close up as a size reference. Instead of, say, a five storey building”

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KennailandI t1_jcfecdo wrote

I wonder if it evolved to be able to peek over the sign.

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Brut-i-cus t1_jcfoh7k wrote

No way they are as drawn

The things would fall over forward unless they had the habit of eating stones to keep in their belly to counterbalance them

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UnexpectedDinoLesson t1_jcg77cs wrote

Mamenchisaurus is a genus of sauropod dinosaur known for their remarkably long necks which made up nearly half the total body length. Their shoulders were somewhat higher than the hips. The different species vary in length, from around 15 m to at least 26 m, and maybe up to 35 m. The species differ in overall size and specific features of the skull and skeleton, but share typical sauropod traits, like quadrupedalism, large bodies, small heads, and long tails.

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NearbyAlps4166 t1_jcgw5e9 wrote

Never been to Hollywood could someone convert the measure unit in t-rex?

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Willinton06 t1_jcdqgas wrote

I think we’ll be finding out at some point that our beliefs on the shapes of dinosaurs are plain wrong

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