Uploaded December 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
How big could Giganotosaurus get? Using mass-population dynamics, we calculate the maximum size of Giganotosaurus carolinii. Giganotosaurus, featured in Jurassic World: Dominion, was one of the largest predatory dinosaurs. Giganotosaurus lived in Argentina during the Cenomanian Stage of the Late Cretaceous Period. It was more than 41 feet long and on average weighed nearly 8 tons.
Giganotosaurus never lived in the same time or place as T.rex, but was depicted battling a T.rex in the prologue to Jurassic World: Dominion. The Giganotosaurus in the video was extremely large. Was that gigantic theropod realistically depicted? Morphology and anachronism aside, here we explore the potential of a Giganotosaurus actually growing to such a massive size. Based on genomic studies done by Romanov et al (2014), the domestic chicken is the closest living relative to nonavian dinosaurs. That makes it the best comparison for population dynamic studies. If we treat the Giganotosaurus population as having similar extremes as those of chickens, we arrive at an individual that weighed over ten metric tons.
Fair use principles in U.S. copyright laws support the implementation of copyrighted material with educational, parodic, or transformative intent. The usage of any copyrighted material in this video is for noncommercial educational purposes, and is asserted permissible under the aforementioned copyright rulings.
REFERENCES
Folkes, Dan. Giganotosaurus carolinii (2021). twitter.com/DanPalaeon1/status/1465371994032156675/photo/1. Accessed December 2021.
Franoys. A mathematical analysis on Giganotosaurus mass (2017). deviantart.com/franoys/journal/A-mathematical-analysis-on-Giganotosaurus-mass-659861738. Accessed December 2021.
Larramendi, A., Paul, G.S., Hsu, S. A review and reappraisal of the specific gravities of present and past multicellular organisms, with an emphasis on tetrapods. Anat Rec. 2021; 304: 1833– 1888. doi.org/10.1002/ar.24574
Romanov, M.N., Farré, M., Lithgow, P.E. et al. Reconstruction of gross avian genome structure, organization and evolution suggests that the chicken lineage most closely resembles the dinosaur avian ancestor. BMC Genomics 15, 1060 (2014). doi.org/10.1186/1471-2164-15-1060
How big could Giganotosaurus get? Using mass-population dynamics, we calculate the maximum size of Giganotosaurus carolinii. Giganotosaurus, featured in Jurassic World: Dominion, was one of the largest predatory dinosaurs. Giganotosaurus lived in Argentina during the Cenomanian Stage of the Late Cretaceous Period. It was more than 41 feet long and on average weighed nearly 8 tons.
Giganotosaurus never lived in the same time or place as T.rex, but was depicted battling a T.rex in the prologue to Jurassic World: Dominion. The Giganotosaurus in the video was extremely large. Was that gigantic theropod realistically depicted? Morphology and anachronism aside, here we explore the potential of a Giganotosaurus actually growing to such a massive size. Based on genomic studies done by Romanov et al (2014), the domestic chicken is the closest living relative to nonavian dinosaurs. That makes it the best comparison for population dynamic studies. If we treat the Giganotosaurus population as having similar extremes as those of chickens, we arrive at an individual that weighed over ten metric tons.
Fair use principles in U.S. copyright laws support the implementation of copyrighted material with educational, parodic, or transformative intent. The usage of any copyrighted material in this video is for noncommercial educational purposes, and is asserted permissible under the aforementioned copyright rulings.
REFERENCES
Folkes, Dan. Giganotosaurus carolinii (2021). twitter.com/DanPalaeon1/status/1465371994032156675/photo/1. Accessed December 2021.
Franoys. A mathematical analysis on Giganotosaurus mass (2017). deviantart.com/franoys/journal/A-mathematical-analysis-on-Giganotosaurus-mass-659861738. Accessed December 2021.
Larramendi, A., Paul, G.S., Hsu, S. A review and reappraisal of the specific gravities of present and past multicellular organisms, with an emphasis on tetrapods. Anat Rec. 2021; 304: 1833– 1888. doi.org/10.1002/ar.24574
Romanov, M.N., Farré, M., Lithgow, P.E. et al. Reconstruction of gross avian genome structure, organization and evolution suggests that the chicken lineage most closely resembles the dinosaur avian ancestor. BMC Genomics 15, 1060 (2014). doi.org/10.1186/1471-2164-15-1060
