The largest dinosaur: Bruhatkaiozavr or ...

The biggest dinosaur - who is he? When people began to dig out dinosaur bones (and this happened for the first time very, very long time ago), there were legends about giant dragons. The Greeks considered these bones to be the remains of their heroes - the participants in the siege of Ilium. After the appearance of Christianity , the fashion came to regard them as the skeletons of animals that did not survive the Flood. And the Chinese even attributed their healing properties to them. Everything changed in the nineteenth century, when it was proved that these bones are the remains of prehistoric animals. The first described dinosaur was a megalosaurus - one of the predatory pangolins that lived 180 million years ago. And although the name "megalosaurus" is translated as a huge pangolin, later the remains of animals were found, surpassing its size many times.

The size of the "most-most" of the lizards increased with each new find. The largest dinosaur, as one would expect, was a representative of the "herbivorous fraction" of the ancient lizards. But the bronzosaur, to which the "passing banner" of the largest lizard passed at the end of the nineteenth century, was not heated for long in the rays of glory. A few decades later, new discoveries were made that changed the views of mankind about antediluvian animals. What is the current situation?

The title "the largest dinosaur" now belongs to a lizard with a difficult name bruhatkaozavr. His bones were found in 1995 in India. However, the "bones" is not entirely true. Bruhatkaiosaurus was described by one single bone - the tibia. Skeletons of large dinosaurs have hardly been found recently, they are reconstructed according to the few fragments found. For example, another applicant for the title "the largest dinosaur" - amphicelia - was described not even by the whole bone, but by the fragment (!) Of the vertebra. How, based on the fragment, the scientists managed to establish the growth, weight and length of the ancient animal - a big question. But, obviously, such techniques exist, with a small margin of error, otherwise the "restored" dinosaurs would not be included in the list of ancient animals. Let's rely on the opinion of professionals in this matter.

So, for this year 2013 who can be awarded the title of "the biggest dinosaur"? The first applicant is Bruhatkaiozavr. This giant weighed (according to the most orthodox hypothesis) up to 240 tons, and the length had up to 44 meters. The second is the amphicelia with a maximum estimated mass of 155 tons and a length of up to 62 meters. In comparison with the "champion" - a kind of slender geek: long, but light. Relatively, of course ...

The third place and the bronze medal is received by the representative of South America (however, at that time, it seems, it has not yet separated from the common mainland) argentinosaurus. It had a length of up to 35 meters and a mass of up to 108 tons. The fourth place was occupied by Zavroposideon, which had a length of 31 meters and a mass of 60 tons. It is remarkable that, unlike most other large herbivorous dinosaurs, the neck was not parallel to the ground, but extended upwards. Thanks to this, I could easily look into the window of the fifth floor of a modern house. And then the sixth. And, finally, the top five closes superzavr. Length of 34 meters and a mass of 40 tons make it quite small against a background of more massive prize-winners.

As for predatory pangolins, the largest predatory dinosaur, according to the unanimous opinion of scientists, is giganotosaurus, which has an increase of 7 meters and a mass of 13 tons. Why are the largest dinosaurs, representatives of predators and herbivores, so vastly different in size? The fact is that for normal life predators need to eat a large amount of meat. And with large dimensions and weight, they need to devour a huge number of animals to sustain life. If predators were the size of a brughatkaosaur, they would have to destroy all the herbivores, and then die themselves. From hunger.