The size of Acrocanthosaurus Atokensis

Seems like sound research and plausible estimates. Good post!

CARNOSAUR - Acrocanthosaurus! Oh, my absolute favorite! I've been in love with this dinosaur since I was a late teen (maybe 19)! The estimates and work you've presented appear very well-thought and extensively researched; very nicely done! I agree whole-heartedly when you say that you've strong doubts in the premise that this animal weighed in at nearly seven tons - that's very likely ludicrous. However, 3-5 tons is definately possible. Of course, as much as I adore this creature, I'd certainly never want to meet one; I don't think I could run fast enough in the heels I wear to escape it, and I certainly don't think crying would disuade it from making a snack of me! Thank you ever so much for presenting this to us! :)

As the biggest acro fan on the site, you should have expected me.

From my research I put acro at 5.5-6.7 tons and 40 ft long. You forget that acro was the bodybuilder of the sauropod killers, it also had that spine that was layered with muslce, not a spinosaur spine.

I completely agree.

@jezza while it may have been a sauropod killer, this most certainly wasn't the bulk of its diet. It probably fed on the ornithopods and some early hadrosaurs as a staple diet.

We also do not know if the spine was covered in muscle, for all we know id could be covered in a thin layer of skin. All we do know is that these neural spines are thicker in circumferenece then Spinosaurus', and extend further down the back.

As for the 'bodybuilder' refererence, i haven't come across anything that would suggest this. Keep in mind Allosaurus Fragilis was also thought to be a sauropod killer, and it weighed only around two tons. Acrocanthosaurus, being an early carcharodontosaur, probably would not be as heavily built as the later species(Giganotosaurus, Carcharodontosaurus, perhaps even tyrannotitan). Acro was kind of the prototype if you will, a stepping stone in the evolution of the sauropod hunters.

These are some great estimations! Are you going to do more size estimations for different dinosaurs?

yes, i plan on doing it with most dinosaur families...Among the ones i'm going to be profiling are:

Shantungosaurus    Diplodocus     Sauroniops

Amphicoelias          Giraffititan     Carcharodontosaurus

Utah Nodosaur        Spinosaurus    Triceratops

Utahraptor              Tyrannosaurus   Torvosaurus

Carnosaur....I agree with everything you said in the series as a whole up until now would you mind to do Utahraptor next as I would love to know its actual size to put on my site

sure! i'll work on it tonight :)

Nice post, looking forward to them all.

I'll just ignore the evolution part.

The neural spines on his neck have a locking system which would require a good deal of muscle. I deffinately agree with it eating dinos other than sauropods. The spine was probably colored to atract mates, but as for just a skin covering, that's just something I don't think is the case. Your view points deffinately aren't stupid, most everyone have different sizes for dinosaurs, that's not a problem. There are so many different weighing methods and hypothesises, no one knows exactly which one's right. With dinos, you have to have some imagination, but not to the point where it completely defies what we know.

This has been discussed in the first description on page 714 to 715. You can read it here:

Acrocanthosaurus neural spines

The greatest problem in this question is probably that we assume morphological similarity to its relatives which lack such structures on their backs. The muscle attachment is possible, but there is no explanation why Acrocanthosaurus would have needed it more than its relatives. If it lived in drier climate than its relatives, fat storage would be plausible. 

There are so many different weighing methods and hypothesises, no one knows exactly which one's right

Well, through tried and true methods we have an educated guess to how big these things got. I use several methods in my posts during this series, really leaving no stone unturned to get a best estimate. Unfortunately, that's all we can do because these things are extinct.

Good post, think 5 tons and 11 metres is very possible.