Total size is a bit trickier, since the only side-view image of the Xinghesaurus mount has much of it obscured by other objects. But I did the best I could, using parts from the other photographs, and taking some parts of other nemegtosaurs, to fill in the obscured and blurry areas. Cross-scaling was at the best I could do, utilizing the landmarks I could actually make out.
I also reposed the mount's spinal column to something more titanosaurian, rather than diplodocoidean.
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| Looks more like a titanosaur now. Not a diplodocoid wannabe! |
Axial length ends up at ~14.86-15.38 meters.
Xinghesaurus ends up at Camarasaurus tier in length, but is much less bulky, with more of it's length being composed of it's long neck and tail.
But how about mass? Well, that's a bit more difficult. But this should give you an idea:
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| A bit larger than a male African forest elephant in terms of torso size, but much larger in total dimensions. |
If I have to guess, probably around ~3-3.5 tonnes.
3-3.5 tons seems light for a ~15 meter animal. That's comparable to animals like Amargasaurus, which is very slender and even shorter(9-10 meters). Opisthocoelicaudia(which appears to have a lot in common with Nemegtosaurus and probably this species by extension) was 11.4-13 meters long and is estimated between 8-25 tons depending on the study. I find the upper estimates to be quite extreme and feel something closer to 8 is accurate. Scaling from a 12 meter long, 8 ton Opisthocoelicaudia would yield over 15 tons for this animal. Even if it had a more slender build, a weight in excess of 10 tons seems likely.
ReplyDeleteVery late reply, but here we go.
DeleteThe figure of ~3-3.5 tonnes is not based on any actual method of estimation and is just a guess based on eyeballing the comparison between it and the African forest elephant. The mounted skeleton of Xinghesaurus and its inferred proportions as estimated here (which, as I now realised, is misscaled, see the new version of the post, linked below) are considerably more elongate than the relatively compact and especially robust skeleton of Opisthocoelicaudia, so direct scaling via total lengths from Opisthocoelicaudia is bound to generate overestimates. See the proportional lengths of the neck and tail as restored here.
In any case, this post hasn't aged very well. I revisited the topic of Xinghesaurus, and its possible size, in my new blog.
The forgotten Xinghesaurus (revisited 2020)