lpetrich

Having taken on land carnivores, I'll now take on land herbivores.

The biggest living ones are African elephants, with a body mass of 5 metric tons (max. ~6 mt). Asian elephants are similar in size, as were recently-extinct proboscideans like the woolly mammoth.

The biggest mammalian herbivore is the rhinoceros-like Indricotherium of the Oligocene (38-23 myr), at about 15-30 mt

However that is typical of sauropods, some of which may have had masses as much as 80 mt.

Which also makes present-day fauna seem rather wimpy.

Kosh

Body By Jake?

[ March 01, 2002: Message edited by: Kosh ]</p>

Major Billy

It could be <a href="http://www.childrensmuseum.org/kinetosaur/dinoapat.htm" target="_blank">worse</a>. Poor Brontosaurus has been usurped entirely.

Bully for T-Rex!

lpetrich

I was thinking more of what biophysical or ecological factors may have been involved -- how would a T. Rex be able to find enough meat in order to keep itself alive, and walk toward that meat without slowly dying of starvation (food energy &lt; walk energy).

Kosh

Are you implying that he would have had to
be a herbivore to get that big? Maybe he went
both ways?

[ March 01, 2002: Message edited by: Kosh ]</p>

Coragyps

I try to help out the Hovind camp whenever I can by pointing out that T rex needed those huge, slashing teeth to have any chance at all of subduing those fierce Cretaceous carrots. Not to mention Jurassic radishes.

GunnerJ

Just to throw an idea out, could cold-blooded/warm-bloodedness have anything to do with it?

Synaesthesia

A creature with a 25,000 newton bite could crush your bones like a crust of french bread. The tyranosaurus rex certainly deserves it's name, shattered illusions about the animal notwithstanding.