Dinosaurs Were Slimmer than We Thought

by Jordan Yerman | June 22, 2009 at 09:44 am

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Remember how, in your schoolbooks, dinosaurs had those pot-bellies? (I'm lookin' at you, Brontosaurus)

Turns out that maybe they actually didn't. Indeed, some paleontologists are claiming that dinosaurs were slimmer than we thought. Huh.

Gary Packard of Colorodo State University states that the statistical model used for the last 25 years is flawed, leading to weight overestimations of up to 20 tons. The dinosaurs' tiny brains would have had no room for body image issues as we understand them, however, eating only to survive.

In support of their calculations, the dino revisionists point out that their method, applied to bones from an actual elephant, suggested that the elephant should weigh 5.9 tonnes, which is what it actually did weigh. The old school back-transformation-from-logs method, on the other hand, gave an unflatteringly porky picture, suggesting that the experimental dumbo was actually several tonnes heavier than it really was.

It's always been believed, though, that Velociraptors watched what they ate. They watched, they stalked, and they pounced.