Dino News and Views: Jurassic Showdown

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Dinosaur fans around the world recently got excited when the five-minute prologue to the upcoming movie Jurassic World: Dominion went online last week. The five minutes of the video are packed with things to talk about, but to prevent this from becoming a rehearsal, we will focus on one scene in particular.

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The first half of this prologue takes place during the time of the dinosaurs, a first for this series. We see a variety of species never before shown in a ‘Jurassic’ movie, with scientific precision ranging from surprisingly good to disappointing. One of the biggest sins is that almost none of the prehistoric creatures shown on screen lived next to each other. Animals separated by millions of years and found on different continents are shown living side by side.

Keep this in mind when considering the confrontation between two giant carnivores that takes place approximately three minutes later. First, we are shown the toothy jaws of a Giganotosaurus . This massive predator from the middle Cretaceous of South America is new to the Jurassic World movies.

We don’t know that much about Giganotosaurus as we do with other large predators like Tyrant Saurus Rex , since so far only a mostly complete skeleton plus some isolated parts has been found. There has been some debate among paleontologists as to how large Giganotosaurus could have grown. However, it was undoubtedly one of the largest carnivorous dinosaurs known to science. The prologue animal is covered in rows of spikes and armor like a giant crocodile. Features like these tend to fossilize, and we have no record of this in Giganotosaurus . It was also missing the tall ridge that ran the length of the animal’s back in the video. There are endless other aspects of this dinosaur that I could critique to death, but that would take years, so I’ll spare you.

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Either way, just at the right time Tyrant Saurus Rex comes out of nowhere to challenge the Giganotosaurus to the battle. After spinning, growling and gnashing their teeth, the dinosaurs come to blows. A brief fight ensues, and Giganotosaurus quickly gains the upper hand, grasping the rex’s neck with its jaws (the well-muscled neck of a royal Tyrant Saurus Rex does not seem to be the best place for the animal to grab …) and send its lifeless body to the river below.

Is this how such a conflict would have turned out in real life? The short answer is that there is no way to know because it never happened. Tyrant Saurus Rex was separated from Giganotosaurus for approximately 30 million years, regardless of the fact that they also lived on two different continents.

Okay, but let’s do a little thought experiment. If we could somehow round up a healthy adult individual of each species and persuade them to fight, who would be the most likely winner?

Depending on who you ask, when it comes to size, it’s pretty much a fair match. The largest specimen of Giganotosaurus appears to come from an animal that exceeded the greatest Tyrant Saurus Rex at length. It seems that Tyrant Saurus Rex it was a more robust animal, and that carnosaurs like Giganotosaurus they were comparatively thin. However, it is difficult to say which animal had a greater total mass by now.

While other factors such as aggression are almost impossible to decipher in fossil animals, one thing we do have a decent understanding of is bite force, especially in Tyrant Saurus Rex . He was a bone crushing specialist, adapted to withstand the twisting force of fighting prey as he crushed it. The bite of Giganotosaurus , in comparison, it was still very powerful, but not as strong as Tyrant Saurus Rex . It was probably best at inflicting nasty slashing wounds and taking down prey with the front half of its jaws.

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What does this mean for our fighting dinosaurs? It seems likely that, if Giganotosaurus got the first bite, could have crippled the rex. The other way around is another story. A good bite in the right place of a Tyrant Saurus Rex it would have been disastrous for Giganotosaurus . That said, who knows if it would always be like this? Rarely in nature today will you have it where, if two species of more or less uniform size come to blows, one will always beat the other. The same is probably true of dinosaurs, especially considering how little we still know about them. Despite this, it’s still fun to use a combination of science and imagination to reflect on what might happen if two prehistoric animals from very different times suddenly meet and duel to the death.

Upcoming Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum Events:

December 4th ^th : Series of virtual speakers with Dr. Aly Baumgartner: “Miocene monkeys and tree time machines.” 3:00 PM.

December 5th ^th : Little Elves Workshop, 10 a.m. M. – 4 p. Kids can shop for gifts, families can pose with Dino Santa, enjoy seasonal snacks and movies, and more! Pre-register online.