Giant Dinosaurs Hatched with Adult-like Proportions (1 of 3) (IMAGE)

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Giant Dinosaurs Hatched with Adult-like Proportions (1 of 3)

Caption

Baby <i>Rapetosaurus</i> is compared to neonatal mammals. <i>Rapetosaurus</i> was only 35 cm tall at the hip, and weighed around 40 kg when it died a few weeks after hatching. This body size is similar to that of some large-bodied mammalian newborns: Black rhinoceros calves are ~ 35?45 kg at birth and stand a little taller at the shoulder than UA 9998 at ~ 65 cm. African elephants are close to a meter high at the hip and weigh between 90 and 120 kg at birth. Hippo newborns are the closest in both height and mass to UA 9998, checking in between 24?45 kg at birth with a shoulder height of 37 cm. This material relates to a paper that appeared in the April 22, 2016 issue of <i>Science</i>, published by AAAS. The paper, by K.C. Rogers at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN, and colleagues was titled, "Precociality in a tiny titanosaur from the Cretaceous of Madagascar."

Credit

D. Vital

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