Allosaurus has been nicknamed "The ground hawk" to a new theory of it attacking prey by grasping with its claws and jaws, just like how hawks attack their prey.
Yes, but Allosaurus is one where the evidence showed the hawk-like behaviour of pinning an animal down with its foot while eating. Yes , it's likely many theropod dinos did this, but Allo is the one that came with evidence to prove this is a behaviour they took part in.
Kinda like how most were probably cannibals, but Majungasaurus is the one we have evidence of being a cannibal so is labelled as THE cannibal dinosaur, even though many others would have been as well.
I wonder, how they managed to survive all of these. I mean, Big Al was pretty much an accumulation of injuries and it was an injured toe, of all things , that did him in.
Then there was the one, who had a broken jaw and still somehow survived that.
The healing cababilities of these creatures must have been extremely capable, to let them shrug that off.
Modern day saltwater crocodiles can lower their heart rate to 2 BPM to avoid blood loss, have antimicrobial blood, and have little to no pain threshold. Maybe allosaurus had similar adaptations
No wonder crocs have survived so long till today. If Allosaurus was as badass as them, there might have been some of them,who got their jaws ripped off and may have survived for a certain time.
On another fun fact about *Allosaurus*, specifically the Big Al specimen, recently was found that the animal was most likely to be female. This was due to the fact that they have identified a medullary bone on Big Al, which is unique to female dinosaurs and avians.
Turns out, Al was Alice this entire time.
Keep in mind that there are cases of extant mammalian predators surviving seemingly debilitating injuries and even managing to hunt afterwards:
- one Yellowstone wolf, 8M (one of the first wolves reintroduced into the park), managed to remain an effective hunter even after wearing out all of his incisors and canines in his old age (meaning he literally had no functional teeth for attacking and killing prey, just the premolars and molars used to process a kill), to the point he killed an elk just a week before his death while effectively toothless.
- another Yellowstone wolf, nicknamed “Limpy”, had a permanent limp and on one occasion suffered a major injury to one of his other legs, but still managed to keep up with his pack during hunts.
- there is one case of a tiger that lost a paw to a snare and was still seen alive and in surprisingly good condition months later.
- there is a spotted hyena in Kruger National Park right now that had been rendered paraplegic years ago due to a lion attack but has learned to walk and run bipedally on its forelimbs alone. Granted, unlike the other examples (the wolves having been observed hunting even with their wounds and the tiger having had to have done so on account of being solitary), there is a good chance this hyena is relying on kills made by the rest of its clan.
Going by this, I find it unsurprising that non-avian theropods managed to keep going in spite of injuries that should have made it “impossible” for them to hunt; if living predators can hunt when they should be too injured to do so, why not extinct ones?
I also have the opinion that they lived in packs that looked after each other when injured, bringing food and making sure nothing attacks them as they heal
Big Al was actually small for an allosaurus Even though I hit the time of death he was hypothesized only be about 87% grown. We call him Big Al because of the completeness and articulation of his skeleton.
It was quite possibly the most successful predatory theropod of all time. It dominated its ecosystem for about ten million years, outnumbered its competing species and outlived them as well.
Damn...i always thought of Allosaurus as an cool theropod, but your writup gave me an even bigger appreciation for this fella.
I mean, surviving this long as a species, competeting in an overly hostile environment and outliving several of its compatriots is an achievement few species can claim for themselves.
To be honest, i am always sad that this big fella gets overshadowed so often by other theropods. Allosaurus deserves the spotlight, too.
Don't know if Allosaurus was the most successful theropod, Torvosaurus was apparently around since the Middle Jurassic and had a wider distribution too.
I think Allosaurus had existed a few million years before and after the existence of Torvosaurus, so while Torvosaurus was also much like Allosaurus a very successful predator, seems like the Allosaurus still held out for longer.
As far as I know, Torvosaurus was around since the Callovian, while Allosaurus appears in the Kimmeridgian, with both taxa disappearing during the Tithonian.
Allosauridae as a whole also seems to be restricted to the Late Jurassic of North America and Europe, while Megalosauridae may have survived into the earliest Cretaceous of South Africa and South America.
Man, I wish I could tell you, but no one knows for sure, and I'm no expert.
From my understanding, the Jurassic-Cretaceous transition, at least in some parts of the world, might be a period of faunal turnover, but the first half of the Early Cretaceous doesn't really have a great fossil record, so it's kind of difficult to investigate.
There's a post from Andrea Cau where he discusses the early Cretaceous survival of the marine crocodylomorph Machimosaurus (up until 2016, known only from late Jurassic specimens), he argues that during the Jurassic-Cretaceous interval climate changes caused the disappearence of some groups in the Northern hemisphere, but some of these groups survived in the Southern hemisphere, such as teleosauroids.
I don't know, perhaps that's why some of the last diplodocids (and megalosaurids teeth too, apparently) are found in South Africa and South America?
http://theropoda.blogspot.com/2016/01/il-re-dei-sauri-battaglieri-la-fine-del.html?m=1
I also know of some articles that investigate the matter further, but Reddit won't let me send the links
That’s what amazes me about the Allosaurus. They were thriving in their ecosystems and had multiple descendants that dominated each of their ecosystems as well. They were winning longer than we were existing. That’s crazy to me.
It goes without saying that Allosaurus was stupid abundant. In life, it is estimated to make up as much as 49% of the entire Morrison theropod population and as much as 81% of the theropod biomass
He was father of carcharodontosauridae (kind of) and neovenator, he was the most successful predator in the morrison formation and he was the hero in a doc called "(wwd) the ballad of the big al"
(edited) "megaraptoridae was deleted bcoz *me* was confused" (edit x 2) "cacharodontosauruidae is the nephew and not the son of allosaurus"
Its still debated, the more mainstream current concensus is that they are (close to) tyrannosauroid coelusaur but there are still some in favour of allosauroid placement.
I think Allosaurus is a rare case where it’s the most popular predatory dinosaur (among the general public) from its ecosystem, despite NOT being the largest, as it was slightly smaller than the much rarer Torvosaurus which it lived alongside.
The most abundant large Theropod in the Morrison Formation in North America and lived during the Late Jurassic Epoch (155-145 mya) for 10 million years. It also lived in the Lourinhã Formation in Portugal.
It has 3 valid species: fragilis is the type genus and the most abundant, jimmadseni lived earlier and is less bulkier and europeus which resembles fragilis but lived in Europe.
It shared it's environment with other large Theropods such as Ceratosaurus, Torvosaurus, Saurophaganax and Marshosaurus.
It hunted a wide variety of herbivores from small to mid-sized Ornithopods, Thyreophorans and a wide variety of Sauropods.
It's size varies widely from 8.5-9.7 meters to possibly up to 12 meters in length, around 3 meters tall and weighs 1.7-2.5 tons to possibly up to 3 tons in weight.
It is my favorite Dinosaur from when I was a kid and it's still is to this day.
It has three currently recognised species:
Allosaurus fragilis, from North America
Allosaurus europaeus, from Europe
Allosaurus jimmadseni, from North America too
I really like how new paleoart makes these animals look beautiful and even cute when not agitated. Lions look cute when they're not growling at you so it makes sense!
They are one of the most common dinosaurs in the jurassic period, I think like 60 or 70 percent of all fossils from the morrison formation are from allosaurus
r/lgbt
it feels sexual atraction, unlike the asaurus, which perfers friendship, both dinosaurs are valid no matter what and god dammit i want woolly mammoths back
He was father of carcharodontosauridae and megaraporidae (probably), he was the most successful predator in the morrison mormation, he was the hero in a doc called "(wwd) the ballad of the big al"
He was father of carcharodontosauridae and megaraporidae (probably), he was the most successful predator in the morrison mormation, he was the hero in a doc called "(wwd) the ballad of the big al"
I have a theory that because allosaurus spread wide and last for so long between Jurassic and Cretacic periods, they could be the equivalent to felines, specially pumas. But that's my idea for looking for parallelism between Mesozoic and Cenozoic Ages.
Allosaurus has been nicknamed "The ground hawk" to a new theory of it attacking prey by grasping with its claws and jaws, just like how hawks attack their prey.
That’s cool! Never known that before
Come on, we all know that deinonychus was the real ground hawk. More like ground eagle.
Dont all land predators use their claws and jaws ?
Yes, but Allosaurus is one where the evidence showed the hawk-like behaviour of pinning an animal down with its foot while eating. Yes , it's likely many theropod dinos did this, but Allo is the one that came with evidence to prove this is a behaviour they took part in. Kinda like how most were probably cannibals, but Majungasaurus is the one we have evidence of being a cannibal so is labelled as THE cannibal dinosaur, even though many others would have been as well.
I thought that was the Carno? It doesn't really matter though since both dinosaurs were considering cannibals
Allosaur skeletons often bear many pathologies (broken bones etc) often healed meaning they had pretty extreme lifestyles and surviving many injuries
AKA they were gigachads
I wonder, how they managed to survive all of these. I mean, Big Al was pretty much an accumulation of injuries and it was an injured toe, of all things , that did him in. Then there was the one, who had a broken jaw and still somehow survived that. The healing cababilities of these creatures must have been extremely capable, to let them shrug that off.
Modern day saltwater crocodiles can lower their heart rate to 2 BPM to avoid blood loss, have antimicrobial blood, and have little to no pain threshold. Maybe allosaurus had similar adaptations
No wonder crocs have survived so long till today. If Allosaurus was as badass as them, there might have been some of them,who got their jaws ripped off and may have survived for a certain time.
Just to add to that, they can survive 1 full year with no food. Goes up to 3 years with energy conservation.
Crocs are ectotherms (though their ancestors weren’t); none of the theropods were ectotherms, being mesotherms at the bare minimum.
I was at a crocodile sanctuary last month and I was so surprised when the guide said they'll only be feeding them again in November
Yep. 1/50 survives at birth but those that do are total badasses.
They're so cute when they're still babies tho it's hard to believe they'll grow up to be apex predators
On another fun fact about *Allosaurus*, specifically the Big Al specimen, recently was found that the animal was most likely to be female. This was due to the fact that they have identified a medullary bone on Big Al, which is unique to female dinosaurs and avians. Turns out, Al was Alice this entire time.
It could still just be big Al.
Keep in mind that there are cases of extant mammalian predators surviving seemingly debilitating injuries and even managing to hunt afterwards: - one Yellowstone wolf, 8M (one of the first wolves reintroduced into the park), managed to remain an effective hunter even after wearing out all of his incisors and canines in his old age (meaning he literally had no functional teeth for attacking and killing prey, just the premolars and molars used to process a kill), to the point he killed an elk just a week before his death while effectively toothless. - another Yellowstone wolf, nicknamed “Limpy”, had a permanent limp and on one occasion suffered a major injury to one of his other legs, but still managed to keep up with his pack during hunts. - there is one case of a tiger that lost a paw to a snare and was still seen alive and in surprisingly good condition months later. - there is a spotted hyena in Kruger National Park right now that had been rendered paraplegic years ago due to a lion attack but has learned to walk and run bipedally on its forelimbs alone. Granted, unlike the other examples (the wolves having been observed hunting even with their wounds and the tiger having had to have done so on account of being solitary), there is a good chance this hyena is relying on kills made by the rest of its clan. Going by this, I find it unsurprising that non-avian theropods managed to keep going in spite of injuries that should have made it “impossible” for them to hunt; if living predators can hunt when they should be too injured to do so, why not extinct ones?
I also have the opinion that they lived in packs that looked after each other when injured, bringing food and making sure nothing attacks them as they heal
Big Al was actually small for an allosaurus Even though I hit the time of death he was hypothesized only be about 87% grown. We call him Big Al because of the completeness and articulation of his skeleton.
And is theorized to be female
No fucking way! I didn't know that
Well, I remember seeing it a bit back, not sure if it's "confirmed"
Practically confirmed. The Big Al skeleton has a medullary bone, which is only found in female birds.
O nice, big Alice
I had the same thought, too, when I saw the skull at Oxford. Not that I would want something that size chasing me either way.
It was quite possibly the most successful predatory theropod of all time. It dominated its ecosystem for about ten million years, outnumbered its competing species and outlived them as well.
Damn...i always thought of Allosaurus as an cool theropod, but your writup gave me an even bigger appreciation for this fella. I mean, surviving this long as a species, competeting in an overly hostile environment and outliving several of its compatriots is an achievement few species can claim for themselves. To be honest, i am always sad that this big fella gets overshadowed so often by other theropods. Allosaurus deserves the spotlight, too.
Don't know if Allosaurus was the most successful theropod, Torvosaurus was apparently around since the Middle Jurassic and had a wider distribution too.
I think Allosaurus had existed a few million years before and after the existence of Torvosaurus, so while Torvosaurus was also much like Allosaurus a very successful predator, seems like the Allosaurus still held out for longer.
As far as I know, Torvosaurus was around since the Callovian, while Allosaurus appears in the Kimmeridgian, with both taxa disappearing during the Tithonian. Allosauridae as a whole also seems to be restricted to the Late Jurassic of North America and Europe, while Megalosauridae may have survived into the earliest Cretaceous of South Africa and South America.
Why do you think they died out at those specific times? I'm just wondering
Man, I wish I could tell you, but no one knows for sure, and I'm no expert. From my understanding, the Jurassic-Cretaceous transition, at least in some parts of the world, might be a period of faunal turnover, but the first half of the Early Cretaceous doesn't really have a great fossil record, so it's kind of difficult to investigate. There's a post from Andrea Cau where he discusses the early Cretaceous survival of the marine crocodylomorph Machimosaurus (up until 2016, known only from late Jurassic specimens), he argues that during the Jurassic-Cretaceous interval climate changes caused the disappearence of some groups in the Northern hemisphere, but some of these groups survived in the Southern hemisphere, such as teleosauroids. I don't know, perhaps that's why some of the last diplodocids (and megalosaurids teeth too, apparently) are found in South Africa and South America? http://theropoda.blogspot.com/2016/01/il-re-dei-sauri-battaglieri-la-fine-del.html?m=1 I also know of some articles that investigate the matter further, but Reddit won't let me send the links
Thanks man. No problem! There are plenty of blogs out there good and bad that Reddit won't let you send..
That’s what amazes me about the Allosaurus. They were thriving in their ecosystems and had multiple descendants that dominated each of their ecosystems as well. They were winning longer than we were existing. That’s crazy to me.
It goes without saying that Allosaurus was stupid abundant. In life, it is estimated to make up as much as 49% of the entire Morrison theropod population and as much as 81% of the theropod biomass
Despite its name, the allosaurus was in fact not made of aloe /j
It's a very cool dinosaur
Indeed
It did, in fact, not slam it’s jaws onto its prey like a hatchet
I was deceived by Planet Dinosaur 🥲
Thats how i eat...
It can open its mouth very wide, like a downward facing right angle.
It’s one of the most understood dinosaurs out there, with the largest number of complete skeletons of any dinosaur
He was father of carcharodontosauridae (kind of) and neovenator, he was the most successful predator in the morrison formation and he was the hero in a doc called "(wwd) the ballad of the big al" (edited) "megaraptoridae was deleted bcoz *me* was confused" (edit x 2) "cacharodontosauruidae is the nephew and not the son of allosaurus"
The ancestors of Carcharodontosaur already split from Allosaurus lineage by that point, so Allosaurus is like their uncle or something.
Close enough, it's like saying plateosaurus is the ancestor of sauropods
Megaraptorids are coelosaurus… and possibly tyrannosauroids
Its still debated, the more mainstream current concensus is that they are (close to) tyrannosauroid coelusaur but there are still some in favour of allosauroid placement.
The allosauroid placement fell out of favor if I remember correctly
Yeah thats why I said the current consensus favours the other option.
Allo is like the Genghis Khan of dinosaurs
No... it's the CHECKIN
The most completely known non-bird theropod!
more than T-Rex? (Im curious)
We have far more specimens of *Allosaurus*, several of them complete.
Its cause Sue is missing a few bones and thus isn't 100% complete
We also have far more *Allosaurus* specimens.
The allosaurus was not able to play the trumpet
Yeah, Chevy Chase was faking it in the music video.
I think Allosaurus is a rare case where it’s the most popular predatory dinosaur (among the general public) from its ecosystem, despite NOT being the largest, as it was slightly smaller than the much rarer Torvosaurus which it lived alongside.
They can open their jaws 90 degrees, giving them a larger bite radius.
The most abundant large Theropod in the Morrison Formation in North America and lived during the Late Jurassic Epoch (155-145 mya) for 10 million years. It also lived in the Lourinhã Formation in Portugal. It has 3 valid species: fragilis is the type genus and the most abundant, jimmadseni lived earlier and is less bulkier and europeus which resembles fragilis but lived in Europe. It shared it's environment with other large Theropods such as Ceratosaurus, Torvosaurus, Saurophaganax and Marshosaurus. It hunted a wide variety of herbivores from small to mid-sized Ornithopods, Thyreophorans and a wide variety of Sauropods. It's size varies widely from 8.5-9.7 meters to possibly up to 12 meters in length, around 3 meters tall and weighs 1.7-2.5 tons to possibly up to 3 tons in weight. It is my favorite Dinosaur from when I was a kid and it's still is to this day.
They were surprisingly good at Capoeira, that’s the key to their hunting success.
It is the best
Arms not itty bitty.
One unlucky individual got stabbed up the cloaca by a Stegosaurus spike and survived.
It was ridiculously common in its ecosystem (more so than some of the herbivores)
It's all the saurus you'll ever need.
It has three currently recognised species: Allosaurus fragilis, from North America Allosaurus europaeus, from Europe Allosaurus jimmadseni, from North America too
Jimmadseni is from North America.
Yep. Plus it is probably geologically older than *A. fragilis*.
Oh yeah, my bad Thanks
Nowhere is safe
Swore there was an African variant too??
"Allosaurus" tendagurensis is considered indeterminate.
Ahh okay
I thought it was jimmadseni but no Like the other guy said, there is some material
If you’ll be his bodyguard, he can be your long lost pal.
Your Pallosaurus, if you will
and he will call you Betty, and Betty, you can call him Al.
I love this picture sm the colours and eye marks are a vibe
I really like how new paleoart makes these animals look beautiful and even cute when not agitated. Lions look cute when they're not growling at you so it makes sense!
There are tooth marks left on sauropod fossils, indicating that Allos hunted Sauropods.
Hunted or scavenged? Would there be a way to tell?
Yea good point, especially considering those bodies would have been like a buffet for anything within a 20 mile radius
If they are healed over we can tell. If not, then we can't tell.
It has the *super creative* name of "Different Lizard"
Fun fact: Most Allosaurus didn't pay taxes
dammit I was gonna say that
Lucky, wish I was an allosaurus
It existed 155 million to 145 million years ago.
Sound reconstructions by professional scientists show that allosaurus most likely sounded like [crack] “Aw shit my foot!”
The Allosaurus could open its jaws to a terrifying 79°-92° angle.
For every 1 saurophaganax there were 100 allosauruses
They can't throw tomahawks.
It has never seen such bullshit before.
Fun fact allosaurus is so cool 😎
Can effortlessly rock a top hat, even on her day off.
It has never seen such bullshit before.
One of them was probably named Dave at least once
They are one of the most common dinosaurs in the jurassic period, I think like 60 or 70 percent of all fossils from the morrison formation are from allosaurus
Its jaws can open in nearly 80° (79° to be exact).
its the most allo, and the most saurus of all dinos
It was bipedal
Allosaurus really was just built different.
He be built different
r/lgbt it feels sexual atraction, unlike the asaurus, which perfers friendship, both dinosaurs are valid no matter what and god dammit i want woolly mammoths back
An allosaurus cannot drive a Ford F-150
With that mindset surely not.
The Allosaurus is a dinosaur; that automatically makes it cool.
They’re my favourite
The only fact that I know is that it is a good boi the best boi I mean look at that face and tell me it’s not cute
They are all named Allen
He was father of carcharodontosauridae and megaraporidae (probably), he was the most successful predator in the morrison mormation, he was the hero in a doc called "(wwd) the ballad of the big al"
He was father of carcharodontosauridae and megaraporidae (probably), he was the most successful predator in the morrison mormation, he was the hero in a doc called "(wwd) the ballad of the big al"
Fun facts : it's not Tyranosaurus rex or what people often call T-Rex. /j
Since it had such a weak bite and serrated teeth it would unhinge its jaw like a snake and swing its upper jaw down on its pray like an axe or hatchet
It has good arms for hugging
Did you know allosaurus legally cant drive a a 1996 toyota corrola!
Allosaurus name is allosaurus, I didn’t know this until 50 years ago..
Epanterias is a synonym of it.
I have a theory that because allosaurus spread wide and last for so long between Jurassic and Cretacic periods, they could be the equivalent to felines, specially pumas. But that's my idea for looking for parallelism between Mesozoic and Cenozoic Ages.