Talk:Tyrannosaurus

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Tyrannosaurus is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.

This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on September 12, 2006.

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Date	Process	Result
May 22, 2005	Peer review	Reviewed
November 24, 2005	Peer review	Reviewed
November 28, 2005	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
July 24, 2006	Featured article candidate	Promoted
Current status: Featured article

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Status of Manospondylus

I lood through http://www.iczn.org/Official_Lists_Indexes_pdfs.htm, and I couldn't find Manospondylus gigas in the 2001 Supplement published by the ICZN. This may mean that the ICZN has not been empowered to reject Manospondylus in favor of Tyrannosaurus. Manospondylus may turn out to be a different type of archosaur in a cladistic analysis. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.194.116.63 (talk) 23:57, 8 December 2006 (UTC).[reply]

Posture

Does anybody else think that the modern posture looks a lot scarier than the posture in the early 1900s?Colin Reding 20:10, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I dunno, both Godzilla and Barney are use the old posture, and they're terrifying ;)Dinoguy2 22:37, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I know!!!! Barney is terrifying!70.100.165.76 00:13, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Newbie

Anyone else notice a rogue 'was here' comment under the feathers heading? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 194.176.105.40 (talk) 09:58, 20 December 2006 (UTC).[reply]

It's no doubt unintentional, but it's kind of humorous to be listing the "conservation status" in the infobox for a dinosaur. Somebody feeling energetic might want to remove this, if there's not some good reason for it... Dan Knapp 20:46, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No more humorous than listing the conservation status for human... All animal species infoboxes have conservation status at the moment, no matter how obvious ;) Dinoguy2 22:16, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Running Speed

I was watching a special last night and read that a new discovery was found on Tyrannosaurus fossils. It's bones were riddled with holes. With this new discovery we find out that the weight of this animal would change drastically! Factoring this in and the other spaces inside of the animal would give it the possibility to run up to 25mph! Also, if the Tyrannosaurus stored energy in it's rigid tail, then it could run for a longer time. Desert Spada 18:47, 1 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Size

The size for T-rex in the article is small. A t-rex called C-rex that has been partially uncovered is estimated to be larger than Sue. It is estimated to be 45ft long and weigh 8.5 tons. Could somebody please change the article. guest 1-9-07

C-rex, or specimen MOR 1126, has not been described in the literature, but several reports since it was announced indicate that it is much smaller than Horner initially believed, possilby not as alrge as Sue. Dinoguy2 00:30, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Albertosaurus taller?

I've seen that Giganotosaurus was taller than Tyrannosaurus at 5.5 m, but I also a page online which stated that Albertosaurus was roughly 5 m to 5.5 m tall as well. This would make Albertosaurus taller than Tyrannosaurus (I'm not talking about length or weight, just height). Can anyone clarify/confirm this for me? MelicansMatkin 00:31, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know of any serious data on dinosaur height... did it refer to height at the hip? Many sources, including older books, list now-inaccurate height because of old concepts of tyrannosaur body position. The newer, horizontal stances significantly reduce the old "20ft tall" stats for T. rex, for instance. Dinoguy2 02:15, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What I did was search "Albertosaurus Height" through Google. I only looked at the blurb, it was I think the fourth option and it was for a website called DinoDictionary. Heres the blurb on the Google Search page:

Height: 18 feet (5.5 meters) Length: 40 feet (12.2 meters) ... A jaw and teeth belonging to an Albertosaurus were identified by Joseph Leidy, who named the ...

MelicansMatkin 12:26, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I can say for certain that a) the mounted (or whatever you call the skeleton on a slab type mount) Albertasuarus at the AMNH is not 18 ft tall, and it's in the old fashioned Godzilla pose and b) the T. rex there used to be 20 ft tall until they corrected its pose. So I think a figure like 18ft is clearly based on an innaccurate, upright posture. The best way to measure dinosaur height is to the hip, especially in bipedal species. This is just a guesstimate, but I think an Albertasuaurs would be around 8 ft tall at the hip, or less. Dinoguy2 16:22, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and the hip height of Sue is usually listed as 13 ft, for comparison. Dinoguy2 16:29, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much for the clarification MelicansMatkin 21:28, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

running and falling

Surely we can find a better citation for the running and falling discussion (#54) than a creationist website? J. Spencer 03:16, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's just what I was thinking. I don't remember that cite being in there a few months ago when we FAd this article. Somehow, someone slipped something in, methinks. Firsfron of Ronchester 03:44, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bingo. It appeared on the 12th of September (14:06, 12 September 2006 Mdotley), although I don't know if the editor had anything ulterior in mind. I took care of it, at any rate. J. Spencer 04:35, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, J, as always. Firsfron of Ronchester 05:09, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sue

Does Sue merit her own article? Or does her bit here suffice? Totnesmartin 23:28, 27 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please, let's not create an article for her; doing so could set a dangerous precedent (articles for each fossil skeleton someone or other has given a name). There are quite a few of them, and my watchlist doesn't need to be any larger than it already is. Firsfron of Ronchester 04:24, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree--in fact Jane (dinosaur) should be merged into either here or Nanotyrannus. Dinoguy2 06:13, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I felt Sue might be notable on grounds of size and completeness. Totnesmartin 10:53, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sue is certainly notable, and needs to be discussed in an article (currently this one). The problem is that we're starting to get a lot of articles on individual specimens: Homer, Big Al, Jane, Sue, etc. This contrasts with the way the specimens of Archaeopteryx are presented: as a single, cohesive article, where each specimen, no matter how complete (Berlin) or incomplete (the feather), is discussed. Obviously, that can't be done for genera with many specimens, but certainly the more notable ones should be mentioned. Several genus-level articles on dinosaurs are still quite short (Allosaurus was only 12k long). Merging these specimen articles with their correct genus articles also helps solve that problem. The guidelines on WikiProject Dinosaurs indicate consensus is that articles should not get any more specific than genus level, and that individual species (and presumably specimens) should be discussed in the article about the appropriate genus. Firsfron of Ronchester 18:12, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Largest ever?

According to This link [[3]] a Tyrannosaurus nicknamed "Super Rex" found in Glasgow, Montana in 1997 is 20 meters long and the largest Tyrannosaurus ever found. I am posting here because I am not sure whether this deserves a brief mention in the article and would like feedback and approval from others who know more about this than me to make sure that this is true before making such a radical and surprising change. --Jj. hoaakkey 00:08, 2 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like it's still under study as of 2002. That Dinosaur Mailing List thread has several replies and starts out here. J. Spencer 00:41, 2 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think this was referring to Peck's rex discovered in Montana in 1997 by Keith Rigby. At that time, he thought that it was the largest T-rex ever but I do not know where this 20 m length estimate comes from (I guess that's some exageration from the media). The site dedicated to Peck's rex gives a 40-43 ft estimate for the length. ArthurWeasley 00:59, 2 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that clarification. You're right Peck's rex, that description page definately confirms that the subject above really is Keigh Rigby's find, save for the usual extreme exaggeration by the media (Such as when they (BBC) digitally mutated Liopleurodon into a 25 meter (80 foot) long, 165 ton monster). But have you heard about this supposedly similarly stacked up monster here. [[4]]