Uploaded October 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
How do scientists calculate dinosaur size? The largest land animal alive today, the African elephant, maxes out at just over ten metric tonnes. That’s huge--but the biggest sauropod dinosaurs like Argentinosaurus weighed eight times as much. How do scientists know that?
That’s where this video comes in. We’ll be going over the various methods that paleontologists use to calculate the masses of extinct animals, with equations and examples, discussing the pros and cons of each.
Introduction: 00:00
The Paleontologists Involved: 00:24
Extant vs Extinct Scaling Methods: 01:07
Skeletal Fractionation: 01:38
Limb Bone Circumference Allometry: 03:21
Quadrupedal Formula: 03:52
Bipedal Formula: 04:23
Femoral Volume (pseudosuchians): 06:57
Isometry: 07:30
Graphic Double Integration: 09:59
GDI Tutorial: 11:45
Minimum Convex Hull Modeling: 13:42
3D Life Modeling: 15:30
Thank you to Mike Taylor, Matt Wedel, Eric Snively, Evan Johnson-Ransom, Mark Witton, Scott Hartman, Brian Curtice, Darius Nau, and Holly Woodward. Thumbnail art is by SkymanPaleo and the soundtrack is by Paleowolf.
Join this channel to get access to perks:
youtube.com/channel/UCmkkmzfWWf4HzrO8SGO3gjw/join
How do scientists calculate dinosaur size? The largest land animal alive today, the African elephant, maxes out at just over ten metric tonnes. That’s huge--but the biggest sauropod dinosaurs like Argentinosaurus weighed eight times as much. How do scientists know that?
That’s where this video comes in. We’ll be going over the various methods that paleontologists use to calculate the masses of extinct animals, with equations and examples, discussing the pros and cons of each.
Introduction: 00:00
The Paleontologists Involved: 00:24
Extant vs Extinct Scaling Methods: 01:07
Skeletal Fractionation: 01:38
Limb Bone Circumference Allometry: 03:21
Quadrupedal Formula: 03:52
Bipedal Formula: 04:23
Femoral Volume (pseudosuchians): 06:57
Isometry: 07:30
Graphic Double Integration: 09:59
GDI Tutorial: 11:45
Minimum Convex Hull Modeling: 13:42
3D Life Modeling: 15:30
Thank you to Mike Taylor, Matt Wedel, Eric Snively, Evan Johnson-Ransom, Mark Witton, Scott Hartman, Brian Curtice, Darius Nau, and Holly Woodward. Thumbnail art is by SkymanPaleo and the soundtrack is by Paleowolf.
Join this channel to get access to perks:
youtube.com/channel/UCmkkmzfWWf4HzrO8SGO3gjw/join
