There's still a physical limit, with gravity etc, of how big a body can grow before it can't support itself on land anymore.

Moreso with invertebrates given the weight of an exoskeleton.

80tons is probably about as big as is achievable for a land vertebrate.
Compared to a Blue Whale at 120+ tons underwater

 

Tbh at least with the sauropods, I admired the brachiosaurus-types (necks going up vertically vs. horizontally) than the diplodocus ones that were just very long. It's the tallness that fascinates me. Where you see the tallest giraffes eating leaves from trees 20 feet tall, you would've seen one of those massive Sauropods saying "hello" to someone watching TV on the 7th floor of an apartment building in NY.

 

Some estimates for Argentinosaurus suggest the animal could have weighed up to 100 tonnes.

Regardless of whether that estimate is accurate or not, there's no question that there was an upper limit before biological functions were too inefficient for the animal to survive.

 

Walking with Dinosaurs was a major contributor to "Sauropod necks in general, and Diplodocid ones in particular, don't go up very much" in depictions, with all except that of the Brachiosaurus going mostly horizontal, and that of the Brachiosaurus being more diagonal than vertical.

Since then though, there's been a trend towards "up" again, even for diplodocids, in scientific media.

 

I know raptors and trex...but honestly the Anklysoaurus.

 

I remember way back when the Brontosaurus (now named Apatosaurus) was thought of as a slow, dumb animal that walked with its tail always drooping down. Times change.

 

Brontosaurus is now generally considered different enough from Apatosaurus to deserve its own genus again. The main reason they were merged, was that they were fairly similar and that Apatosaurus was named first.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brontosaurus

 

Funnily enough, some of the earliest described dinosaurs in the UK were reconstructed as being more mammalian in their articulation, i.e, legs underneath the body instead of splayed out. Some early depictions showed them as more dynamic animals as well. This picture was produced in 1896:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoart#/media/File:Laelaps-Charles_Knight-1897.jpg

For decades this got replaced with the idea of sluggish reptilian animals, even though biologically it didn't make much sense. This view still predominated when I was a kid in the 70s. Once this view was challenged, and dinosaurs were looked at in a more realistic light, it's astounding how quickly, reconstructions changed along with it.

 

https://www.knebworthhouse.com/knebworth-house-press-releases/dinosaurs-in-the-dino-trail/

I drive past the T-Rex a few times a week on the B656. Always makes me smile, peering out from the trees, begging to be replaced by something that doesn't look like a giant weather-beaten papier-mache product of an upper school collaboration. Still my favourite 'dinosaur'.

 

Triceratops, my all time favourite since I was a boy

 

Triceracop was pretty cool.

 

And there seems to be a near-unanimous agreement among kids of all generations that Brontosaurus just sounds better.

Just like how Pluto will always be a planet.

The kids have decided.

 

I love me the ankylosaurus, but stegosaurus FOR. EVER.

 

Spinosaurus is changing yet again:




It also turns out that chickens and ducks basically already existed for the last 2 million years the dinosaurs were around, and that dinosaurs lived year-round even in the ancient arctic:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/top-ten-dinosaur-discoveries-2020-180976578/

 

Smaug.

 

T Rex baby.

 

My least favorite dinosaur is Mitch McConnell.

 

i think that’s technically an invertebrate.

 

Birds and the above