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July 17, 2009

Strange But True!

Q. At a Buenos Aires museum is a single dinosaur vertebra from a 100-million-year-old Argentinosaurus, measuring 5 feet and 3 inches high and requiring a forklift to move it. A human vertebra, by comparison, would fit in the palm of a hand, and an elephant's would take two hands. So how did this biggest land animal ever get to be so big?

A. The Argentine lizard weighed in at 83-110 tons and was 70 feet tall and 115 feet long, says James O'Donoghue in New Scientist magazine. Cope's rule argues that animals often start out small and get bigger over evolutionary time, with obvious advantages, says paleontologist Martin Sander: It's harder for anything else to eat them and they're better equipped to fight off competitors for food or mates. However, big animals are more vulnerable to extinctions, notes paleontologist David Hone. They eat more and breed more slowly, which can do them in when times get tough.


 
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