The size of Giganotosaurus Carolinii

A new series i've just hatched, if it goes over well i'll continue it i think..

But, that's not the reason i decided to do this. There is so much overexaggeration, and misconceptions i've decided to take a good hard look at some Dinosaurs and their respective sizes.

Today, we cover...

Giganotosaurus Carolinii; the Giant southern lizard

Alot of hype surrounds this creature. When it was first discovered in the 90's, the press was over it. Another giant theropod that exceeded the size of the mighty tyrannosaurus. But...was it really?

The short answer? nope.

The holotype,  (MUCPv-Ch1) is about 70% complete and includes parts of the skull, a lower jaw, pelvis, hindlimbs and most of the backbone missing only the premaxillae, jugals,  quadratojugals, the back of the lower jaws and the forelimbs. Initial estimates put this thing at around 12.8 meters long and around 7 or so tons. Then, news hit of a second Giganotosaurus being unearthed; (MUCPv-95)  consisted of a fragment of a lower jaw. The corresponding bone said to be 8% larger than that of the holotype. However, for the sake of this article, it will not be accounted for much...though i will provide an estimate on it later on. Bone variation between individual theropods is too great for it to get an estimate off of imo.

The skull of Giganotosaurus is huge, but not as large as it was previously thought to be. Why you may be asking? overestimations and exaggerations. that of the holotype was  estimated at roughly five feet in length. Even though the original authors briefly claimed the length of six feet—leading to an estimate nearly six and a half feet for the skull length of MUCPv-95. This claim was not repeated by subsequent studies. Original authors have stated a measurement of 1.6 meters( 5.2 feet) is more plausible.

I myself decided to do the math on this one...

So, following the "8ths rule" as i like to call it, we can get a rough estimate for the size of Giganotosaurus. To be fair, i will use the 1.95 m skull and the now widely accepted 1.65 m skull.

1,95X8 yields roughly~ 15.6 meters TBL
1,65X8 yields roughly~ 13.2 meters TBL

But...

In 2006 or maybe a little earlier, the initial estimate was brought down to 12.2m (making the best-case scenario of the other specimen go down to 13.2). 

As we do not have very many Giganotosaurus individuals, There are factors that will most certainly determine how large these things got like the actual length of the tail. It maybe had a longer tail or a shorter one, the best we can estimate the size of the two specimens of Giganotosaurus, accounting for possibility of tail variation, dentary size variation, things variable between individuals; is 12-13m.

14m is pushing it and going by the literature, impossible to make.