Talk:Argentinosaurus

Gravityless image is pure fantasy!

I contest the included picture in the article. Is there any solid proof these argentosaruide giants could roam dry lands like biological versions of the AT-AT imperial walker? Common mechanical wisdom suggests a 100+ tons body would collapse the legs under its own weight! The fact that their nose openings were on top of the head indicates they lived in waters and their body was always submerged to support the vast weight with buoyancy. Only the top of their heads were above water ever. 81.0.79.88 21:59, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Water pressure would have crushed their lungs. Sauropods instead appear to have preferred drier areas, where their large digestive systems would have been an advantage for dealing with low-quality food. J. Spencer 22:14, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Plus "common mechanical wisdom" is generally bollocks. -- John.Conway 20:35, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Dude, why don't you actually do a little research on sauropod anatomy before you run around all whilly-nilly babbling about ideas known to be false since the 1950s. And as for your statement "is there any solid proof these Argentinosaurus (not "argentinosaruide") giants could roam dry land", my answer is, Lord yes, beyond doubt. In fact, a better question would be is there any solid evidence against terrestrial sauropods? Some sauropod skeletons show fossilized remnants of terrestrial plants in their rib cages, there are sauropod trackways found in areas believed to have been far from water at the time the prints were made, not to mention the fact that water pressure would crush their lungs, and most sauropods could barely raise their necks above their shoulders, making it impossible to assume the vertical position the animal would need in order to breathe underwater. You obviously don't know anything about actual sauropod anatomy, so shut up and take your time machine home to the 1930s, where people might actually endorse your idiotic views on dinosaurs!--24.36.130.109 (talk) 03:00, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Please add this info to the article instead of just leaving it here. I've made a section for it: Argentinosaurus#Theories_of_aquatic_lifestyle. Gronky (talk) 18:53, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Questionable statement

"(...) after all of its more familiar Laurasian Jurassic kin — like Apatosaurus — had long disappeared"

What is this supposed to mean? Did sauropods go extinct in Laurasia at the start of the Cretaceous? Why Apatosaurus, given that it's not closely related? I think the sentence is misleading at best. -- John.Conway 20:41, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Agree. Titanosaurs survived in Laurasia into the LK. Maybe something more along the lines of "after the diplodocid sauropods had gone extinct", or simply remove it as irrelevent. Dinoguy2 02:28, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Aquatic???

Arigintinasaurus aquatic??? you have to be kidding! Everyone knows that was imposssible! Either you are someone who was somehow transported through time from the 1930s or you are a creationist. mechanical knowledge says ortherwise. T.Neo 12:33, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

What are you talking about? There is no implication in the article that it might have been aquatic? Circeus 00:16, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I think, he was refering to the anonymous comment on this page above ("gravityless ..."). ArthurWeasley 05:44, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I was refering to the comment above on that page. The idea that sauropods were aquatic is outdated. "Common mechanical knowledge" actually points otherwise. At that depth the lungs would have collapsed. and the sauropds couldn't lift their necks into a vertical position.T.Neo 11:35, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Please add this info to the article instead of just leaving it here. I've made a section for it: Argentinosaurus#Theories_of_aquatic_lifestyle. Gronky (talk) 18:54, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

For the record, we don't know the position of the nostrils on the head in this species because we have never found the head, but modern research shows the actual nostril opening was at the tip of the snout anyway [1]. Additionally, submerging the body in water would be impossible because sauropods were filled with air sacs like birds and, also like birds, would have floated on the top of the water without special adaptations for diving deeper [2]. The only thing worse than hundred-year old argument is debunking them with 50 year old counter-arguments. MMartyniuk (talk) 11:52, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Can you add any of this to the article? This isn't one of my areas of interest or expertise, but I got involved because it seems a waste to have such things documented only on the Talk page. Gronky (talk) 13:56, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

As I mentioned on my talk page, such info is not relevant here, old theories like that were suggested for sauropods in general and discredited again long before Argentinosaurus was even found. It only makes sense on the general sauropod article, and it is indeed already there. FunkMonk (talk) 13:58, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

From the most recent edit: "n the first half of the twentieth century, some experts suggested that Argentinosaurus was in fact aquatic." Given that Argentinosaurus was discovered in the 1990s, I hope you can understand why this statement is ridiculous... MMartyniuk (talk) 16:12, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

For a topic that has been the feature of hour-long documentaries and numerous scientific papers, the article is very short and vague. Meanwhile, here on the talk page there are editors who seem pretty confident about their knowledge. But the article is left in its poor state. That's what's ridiculous. Gronky (talk) 01:00, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

It is not ridiculous to add irrelevant material to an article just to make it longer? Seriously? Did you even read the arguments? How can we say a theory was proposed for the lifestyle of this specific animal, when it was deemed inaccurate a century before the animal was even discovered? Over a century ago, pterosaurs were proposed to be flying marsupials. Do you want us to add this "fact" to the, say, Eoazhdarcho page (named in 2005), just to make it longer? FunkMonk (talk) 06:17, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

" has been the feature of hour-long documentaries" So what? Documentaries focus on this animal for one reason only - it's big. That's about all we know about it, and that fact is talked about in the article. The skeleton is extremely incomplete and we don't have interesting things like behavioral traces, nesting sites, pathologies, etc. to write about. Argentinosaurus is simply an animal whose fame exceeds its scientific importance. MMartyniuk (talk) 12:01, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

What is the exact length and weight of Argentinosaurus?

Hello, I'm zh:User:Hoseumou from zh.wikipedia. I have some question about the length and weight of Argentinosaurus.

• The DinoData say Argentinosaurus is 30 metres in length.
• Thomas R. Holtz's paper say Argentinosaurus is 36.6 (120 ft) metres in length.
• DinoRuss say Argentinosaurus is 40-45 metres in length, 80-100 tonnes in weight.

And there are many different internet websites showing different datas, such as: [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], even the en.wikipedia & es.wikipedia have different data.

I know Argentinosaurus fossils is very fragmentry, but I ask for the exact length and weight of Argentinosaurus. User:hoseumou 15:35, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi, we don't know sadly, Argentinosaurus is very fragmentry, the reason the sizes vary is because they are all estimates. It's only known from a few vertebra, some femurs and a tibia. :( Steveoc 86 (talk) 15:40, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

The DinoRuss estimate is the oldest, so that one can be discounted. DinoData is probably going from Ken Carpenter's 2006 paper on giant sauropods. It can be downloaded here. I'm not sure which estimate Holtz used.

It's okay to use a range of estimates, especially since there would have been a range in the real animal. I would write it something like: Argentinosaurus was first estimated at X meters long and weighing Y tonnes.<reference> Later estimates have downsized it to a range of W meters<reference> to V meters<reference> long, with a weight of T tonnes<reference> to U tonnes.<reference>.

This is the best option. It should be made clear that we don't know how big it actually was, because without little details like complete neck and tail, it's impossible to know its relative proportions to other sauropods for comparison. Dinoguy2 (talk) 23:03, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I've another question. The DinoData said maximum width of 1st dorsal vertebra is 129 cm, height is in 159cm; height of 2nd dorsal vertebra is 115cm. This article said one of Argentinosaurus's vertebra had a length of 1.3 meters, what is the length talking about? Dorsoventral, anteroposterior, or left-right? Finally, I still hope that both of you can find out more papers about Argentinosaurus, thank you. User talk:hoseumou 01:50, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Dinosaur sexuality and blind young needs a reference

I would say the following section needs a reference or two:

'The Argentinosaurus was the most sexually active dinosaur living on Earth, they would generally lay up too 10000 eggs in a life time. The newborn were born blind and only developed full sight within 2 years. This would allow the dinosaur to fully develop their hearing first. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.75.76.27 (talk) 17:51, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Largest dinosaur ever.

I think the sentence stating there were larger species of dinosaurs should be removed. It's a strong statement without merit and sentences like this chip away at wikipedias status as a credible source of knowledge. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.98.90.132 (talk) 23:56, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

If it's not the biggest, what is?

The intro seems overly vague about its size:

It is among the largest known dinosaurs.

What does that mean? It's in the top 100?

I'm no expert on this topic, but would it not be fair to say "Many experts believe argentinosaurus to be the largest known dinosaur"? (Or should that be "land-based dinosaur"?) Or "After XYZosaur, argentinosaurus is possibly the largest (land-based) dinosaur"? Gronky (talk) 18:39, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

39.7m???

Why there are no sources for that estimate? And if you have sources, that information would be useful to me. Dinosaur Fan (talk) 00:57, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

The source is in the article (footnote 6) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3864407/ Dinoguy2 (talk) 13:25, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree with User Dinoguy2.!--AlfaRocket (talk) 15:08, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Biomechanics and speed

Is there any published critique on the inaccuracies of the Museo Carmen Funes mount? the conclusions of the analysis done by Sellers et al (2013) in some form rests on the accuracy of the mount and that is something they acknowledge: "The model relies heavily on the full body skeletal reconstruction and more work needs to be done on other, more complete sauropod specimens to confirm any findings." Mike.BRZ (talk) 22:01, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Mass estimate

Sellers et. al give 3 different values for their mass estimate: 83,230.29 kg (Table 5), 83,230 kg (below Table 3), and 83 tonnes (3 times, in the Abstract, Discussion and Conclusion). All values other than the 83,230.29 kg value are rounded off. Next to the 83,230 kg value they state: "However it must be remembered that these values are necessarily estimates", meaning that they understand that the value displays false precision, which is why they use the 2-digit value elsewhere. If they can round the value off appropriately, surely we can too. WolfmanSF (talk) 01:53, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

When was it discovered?

I don't know when the Argentinosaurus was discovered. According to the spanish page, it was discovered in 1989, but here it says 1987 so what is the true one? Turbo-Dino Rex (talk) 10:35, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

1989 is correct following the description paper, so I'd go with that one. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 17:17, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

There's a rough Paleoglot translation of the paper here: [10], and it actually doesn't specify when the specimen was found. The summer of 1989 seems to just be when funded excavation took place. The translation is, unfortunately, very rough. --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 17:52, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

We have a few Spanish speakers in the paleo project that could help if needed. FunkMonk (talk) 17:57, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Checking on the *much superior* spanish article shows a link to the original paper, so anyone with spanish knowledge could probably read in there. From what I understood the specimen was located and excavated some time around/in 1989, which is good enough for our uses here. [11] IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 18:02, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, this might make a good future collaboration. --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 18:44, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Looking at the list of most popular dinosaur articles, it might be the easiest of the top 30 that are not yet GA/FA to get there... The language issue is probably easier to overcome than the current messes Spinosaurus and Pachycephalosaurus are in (and Brontosaurus won't exactly be a piece of cake either). FunkMonk (talk) 08:40, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

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Taxobox Image

The skeletal mount in the taxobox has a variety of problems. Here is a list of (at least some of) them:

1. The skull's morphology feels kind of... weird
2. Extremely concentrated premaxillary teeth
3. Maxillary tooth count of zero
4. Cervical transitions seem... strange. Sections of those vertebrae seem to be cloned.
5. Droopy cervical ribs
6. The dorsal spines seem shorter and broader than they should be (perspective?)
7. Has a ridiculously narrow chest (like, diplodocid narrow)
8. Anterior part of illiac blades curve inwards
9. Fourth pedal ungual
10. Too many caudal verts?

Because of this, I think that we need to replace the image. Perhaps the holotype material display in the background of the image could be extracted for this purpose? Any input? Also, my skeletal's missing a rib. Does anyone know of any resources for it? --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 00:15, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

I think the mount remains the best image we have for Argentinosaurus. The skull, being obscured by view, is a lot less obviously wrong, the tooth counts are fine anyways, it looks like a Nemegtosaurus/Sarmientosaurus-based skull with narrow premaxillae. The vertebrae themselves are fine, we have known related taxa looking way more extreme (Mendozasaurus etc). The chest is wrong, but ironically is better than most sauropod mounts, as the coracoids are close to eachother instead of separated. And its actually about the right width, the Nima-version Futalognkosaurus with a massively wide torso is very wrong. The ilium and pedal claws are wrong, but they're not a very significant part. The wrist articulation is also not very good, but its not noticable either. And caudals, well caudals are known from about 2 titanosaurs with an entire tail, and in Macronaria range from ~30 to ~65. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 00:40, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

I think the current image is the best compromise between looking presentable, and not focusing on too many unknown parts, like the earlier taxobox image did. This one[12] may be even better in that regard, though it may look weird to most people. It focuses on parts that are known. Mike Taylor also used it in a presentation once. FunkMonk (talk) 07:33, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

I like the top down image that Funk posted, although I agree it might confuse people and it still has problems. All mounts of Argentinosaurus are questionable interpretations which favour exaggerating the size like incredibly long tails, torsos and giant feet etc. My prefered solution would be a nice shot of the holotype material in the taxobox, with images of the mounts in the body of the article. Something like this...but free; [13] ( maybe we could try and contact the author and get him to release the image to the commons?) because that material is ultimately what 'Argentinosaurus' actually is. Thankfully Slate Weasel's diagram gives the viewer a decent idea of what's actually known. Steveoc 86 (talk) 00:21, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Whatever we do with it, acquiring such a photo would be great for the article. I've had some success with asking for licence changes on Flickr in the past (got a lot of nice Japanese dino expo photos through it), so should be possible. Not sure what happened to my Flickr account, though... FunkMonk (talk) 10:13, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

I contacted the author of that image and he's said it's fine for us to use it and any of the images on this blog post, although he asks for his face to be blurred out if he's in one. [14] There are some shots of neck and tail bones, which he writes in the image captions, belong to Argentinosaurus. The post is from 2010 so I suspect they might be from Patagotitan or something...unless there is undescribed material!? There is also a shot of Giganotosaurus material. Steveoc 86 (talk) 22:51, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

Sounds nice, make sure to get the permissions through otrs![15] FunkMonk (talk) 08:19, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

Extracted from current image

• I've uploaded this file as a possible temporary solution while the copyright status of the above image is worked out. This did unfortunately end up being pretty blurry. Comments? --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 16:00, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Nice way to show what's known. Not sure about putting a heap of bones in the taxobox though, when the skeletal mount photos aren't unambiguously inaccurate... FunkMonk (talk) 20:30, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

As for getting the article to FA or similar, seems we just missed its 30th anniversary:[16] FunkMonk (talk) 22:09, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

If a comment on that story is to be believed, the find was reported in a newspaper in 1989 but it mentioned the remains where found two years previously. Steveoc 86 (talk) 10:25, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Unpublished Size Estimates etc

Would anyone take issue if I removed the Mortimer DML estimates from the article? If the estimates sparked a discussion then I think they might be more notable but as far as I can see it's just one post. If we do keep them I think they'd be better off in an external links/see also section. I also think the inclusion of Hartman's comments on his blog might be questionable. I know that he has a reconstruction that he has yet to publish but the comments are somewhat in passing and preliminary. If he posts the reconstruction on his blog and talks more extensively about it then I think that would be more notable and would be happy to include it. Any thoughts? Steveoc 86 (talk) 19:51, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

In general, emails and blogs shouldn't be cited for controversial claims. I cited Hartman's blog in Giganotosaurus, though, and it seemed to be fine during FAC. FunkMonk (talk) 20:06, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

I think the inclusion of that blog post is fine because it's explicitly talking about the mass of Giganotosaurus in detail with diagrams etc. The one in Argentinosaurus article is basically a paragraph? Steveoc 86 (talk) 20:28, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

What is the Maximum allowable Weight of Sauropod Dinosaurs

The Maximum allowable weight of Sauropod Dinosaurs is controlled by the Ultimate Bearing Capacity of the soil. In Engineering, a common number used is 2500 Pounds per square foot of surface area under foundations, however, there is a factor of safety of 2 to keep structures from settling as the soil compresses and moves down under load. Dinosaurs do not stand too long in one location, so they do not need the factor of safety applied, and, they can apply, briefly, while walking, up to 5,000 lbs per square foot of surface area under one, usually rear, foot print. All you need to know to find out how much a Sauropod weighed is to know the surface area of one rear footprint in square feet, multiply by 5,000, and you have a good estimate of the animals weight. So, you ask, what was the largest, and heaviest? It turns out they weigh a lot less than most people think. The Largest footprints from the UK (?) have a foot bottom surface area of less than 16 square feet for one rear footprint, so the Heaviest, by footprint, is LESS THAN 16 X 5,000 <= 80,000 pounds, or 40 short tons, (36.364 tonnes). This creates a bit of a problem. How can an animal that displaces a Volume up to 15 Male African Elephant Volumes ( Maximum ) weigh so little ? The answer is in the Elephants. The Elephants are the largest animal that can currently walk the Earth in the current surface Gravity. Sauropods are the largest animals that could walk the Earth in a prior surface gravity. The lower the surface gravity, the larger the allowable Volume of the largest animal. As it turns out the solution is fairly simple. Volume is a Cubic Function, and Area, whether surface area, or bone cross-sectional area, of foot bottom surface area is a squared function. The ratio of surface area divided by Volume is surface gravity. Now the maximum Volume is almost 15.0 Male African Elephant Volumes, while the Weight, and the foot bottom surface area are related to 15.0^(2/3) = 6.082202 Male African Elephant Weights. The ratio is thus 6.082202 / 15.0 = 0.404 480 "g" for the maximum allowable Volume, and Maximum allowable Weight of the largest possible Sauropod. Now Elephants can displace, at maturity, between 5.5 and 6.0 cubic meters. The best number to use is less than 6.0, I use a number between 5.84, and 5.85 cubic meters per "large" Male African Elephant. ( 5.84255 ). A 15.0 Sauropod would displace 15.0 X 5.84255 = 87.63825 cubic meters, and if they were possible in our surface gravity they would weigh in at 87.63825 X 2200 = 192,804 lbs (in 1.0 g). There are a number of problems with this weight. One is that a single rear footprint would need to be 192,804 / 5,000 = 38.56 square foot in surface area. This is more than 2.41 times the surface area of the largest footprint ever found, so this kind of weight is not possible. The 5.84255 cubic meter elephant weighs in at 5.84255 X 2200 lbs/m^3 = 12,853.61 lbs ( use 12,854 ) The Sauropod would thus weigh in at 15.0 X 0.405480 X 12,854 = 78,181 lbs (low g). Its footprint would be a maximum size of 78,181 / 5,000 = 15.6362 square feet of foot bottom surface area, which is less than the estimate maximum of 16 sf. So Pi/4 X d^2 = 15.6362 feet, so d= 4.4619 feet or 53.5429 inches across at the diagonal. This is fairly close to the maximum sized footprint ever found. Another Note: The unit weight of water is about 2200 lbs per cubic meter in 1.0 g, but would be only 892 lbs in the 0.405480 g "Largest" Sauropod Environment. Look at the Videos on Swimming elephants. Their density is about 99.7% of the Density of water. Only the end of the trunk sticks up above water. Dinosaurs had similar densities. Michael W. Clark, Golden, Colorado 98.245.216.62 (talk) 00:53, 2 March 2019 (UTC)