Giganotosaurus v. Mapusaurus
Both had huge skulls and knife-like teeth. Both roamed Patagonia about 100 million years ago. Both may have been bigger than T. rex, and both may have hunted the biggest-known dinosaurs.
From documentary depictions of these two carcharodontosaurs alone, you could be forgiven for thinking they were the same animal: In the second episode of Chased by Dinosaurs, a 2003 spin-off of the influential BBC miniseries Walking with Dinosaurs, host Nigel Marven travels back to mid-Cretaceous Argentina and witnesses a gang of Giganotosaurus isolate and slowly tire and bleed a 90-plus ton Argentinosaurus to death. Eight years later, in the fifth episode of the all-CGI BBC series Planet Dinosaur, a less-coordinated band of Mapusaurus hunt the same sauropod species, though in this case, the predators only manage to tear a strip of flesh from the beast's back and one of them ends up being crushed by a defending adult. Only hours or even days later do these theropods get to feast on their prize, long after it has expired from its wound.
Despite differences in these portrayals, the fossil record doesn't support them. There is no evidence either for relentless, disciplined hunting from Giganotosaurus, nor proof of less organized, more patient predation by Mapusaurus. Yet differences are there: Giganotosaurus hails from the Candeleros Formation, dating to about 100 to 97 million years ago, while fossils of Mapusaurus, though found nearby, are found in the younger Huincul Formation, the same site as Argentinosaurus. The circumstances of each dinosaur's discovery also differed, with Giganotosaurus found as one, mostly complete specimen and Mapusaurus found from several, crudely preserved individuals of different ages and sizes (hence their constant portrayal as more social hunters).
Physically, I had little idea of what separated the two, other than the maximum Giganotosaurus size estimates tended to be larger than those for Mapusaurus. The former dinosaur was my first subject in my Mesozoic sketchbook (see above) and yesterday I decided to draw the latter, based on the two mounts that dominate Google searches of this dinosaur.
The biggest difference I found between these animals was in their nasal crests: While those of Giganotosaurus' clearly diverge before arching over the eye, Mapusaurus' seemed lower and closer together, if not fused together in real life.
Both had huge skulls and knife-like teeth. Both roamed Patagonia about 100 million years ago. Both may have been bigger than T. rex, and both may have hunted the biggest-known dinosaurs.
From documentary depictions of these two carcharodontosaurs alone, you could be forgiven for thinking they were the same animal: In the second episode of Chased by Dinosaurs, a 2003 spin-off of the influential BBC miniseries Walking with Dinosaurs, host Nigel Marven travels back to mid-Cretaceous Argentina and witnesses a gang of Giganotosaurus isolate and slowly tire and bleed a 90-plus ton Argentinosaurus to death. Eight years later, in the fifth episode of the all-CGI BBC series Planet Dinosaur, a less-coordinated band of Mapusaurus hunt the same sauropod species, though in this case, the predators only manage to tear a strip of flesh from the beast's back and one of them ends up being crushed by a defending adult. Only hours or even days later do these theropods get to feast on their prize, long after it has expired from its wound.
Despite differences in these portrayals, the fossil record doesn't support them. There is no evidence either for relentless, disciplined hunting from Giganotosaurus, nor proof of less organized, more patient predation by Mapusaurus. Yet differences are there: Giganotosaurus hails from the Candeleros Formation, dating to about 100 to 97 million years ago, while fossils of Mapusaurus, though found nearby, are found in the younger Huincul Formation, the same site as Argentinosaurus. The circumstances of each dinosaur's discovery also differed, with Giganotosaurus found as one, mostly complete specimen and Mapusaurus found from several, crudely preserved individuals of different ages and sizes (hence their constant portrayal as more social hunters).
Physically, I had little idea of what separated the two, other than the maximum Giganotosaurus size estimates tended to be larger than those for Mapusaurus. The former dinosaur was my first subject in my Mesozoic sketchbook (see above) and yesterday I decided to draw the latter, based on the two mounts that dominate Google searches of this dinosaur.
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