Saurophaganax maximus, the lord of the lizard eaters, is one of the most metal theropods ever discovered. In this video we'll analyze what made the ruler of the Jurassic so special, how big it truly was, and how it would have hunted. We'll go through the known specimens, cover cutting-edge size estimates, and analyze Leviathan, the biggest theropod of the Jurassic. Saurophaganax, or Snacks for short, is a megatheropod steeped in controversy. It was originally named Sorophagus in 1941, but it turned out that the name was already taken by a bird.
In 1995, Dan Chury fixed up the genus by taking a neural arch and making it the holotype for a new taxon, Sorophaginax maximus, and reassigning the old Sorophagus material to it. It's currently defined as a large-bodied allosaurid with meat-chopper chevrons and dual parasatural laminae, which differentiate it from Allosaurus, but there's more to the picture. If Allosaurus is the Lion of the Jurassic, Sorphaginax is the massive Smilodon. Its tall neural spines indicate a ridged, muscular back compared to Allosaurus, almost Acrocanthosaurus-like. It had high caudal centra as well, which combined with its huge chevrons for a deep, powerful tail.
Massive muscle scars on preserved radii indicate strong arms, which makes sense when you look at the monster's claws. I'm not kidding when I say that Sorphaginax was essentially the Indominus rex in real life. It invested its evolution points into both a bulky WWE wrestler body and claws that would make Spinosaurus proud.
Its ungules, when covered in life by a keratin sheath, would have been meat hooks the size of a small machete, curved to better hook into its prey and grapple them as it bit down on vital areas. It was the theropod equivalent of a battleship, armed, dangerous, and massive. And if you want to pilot the mechanical equivalent of a Megatherapod, World of Warships is the perfect game for you.
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Thank you to paleontologist Brian Curtis for allowing us to reproduce a segment of his thoughts here. So I got to thinking, okay... It was a giant Allosaurus. It was originally thought to be an Allosaurus. The only character that Ray used Stovall to use to separate it was Size.
And Size is a terrible character to use as a paleontologist. Why? Because when you use Size, how do you know if you find a small version of the big animal? You need to have a character on the bone.
Stovall didn't have one, but he knew it was very close to Allosaurus. Enter 1995, Dr. Daniel Cherry, an Allosaurus specialist, was... went and looked at the Sarfaginax material very carefully. And after a great effort, he discovered one unique character that separates it from Allosaurus that's not size. And that's a parasagittal lamina.
So what's a parasagittal lamina? Para means alongside or near and it's running right alongside the neural spine and the presagipophysis. Basically it's these features here.
And Allosaurus doesn't have those features. Which means we now have a character. If you find a bone, even a smaller Saurophagin X should have these characters on it.
He also looked at the chevrons and noticed that the chevrons, these are bones underneath the tail and all these dinosaurs, and they're very different than Allosaurus. Allosaurus has your normal chevron. Looks like a Y. It's chevron shaped.
Simple. Easy peasy. Saurafaginax also has Y-shaped chevrons up front, but when you get into the middle of the tail, they turn into these meat chopper, meat cleaver chevrons.
Interestingly, thanks to Convergent Evolution, Tyrannosaurs have these meat cleaver chevrons. What are they doing with the tail that's different than Allosaurus? I don't know, but I can tell you that the vertebrae of Saurafaginax are giant. And not only was it a giant, but it lived in a brutal environment.
Sorphaganax was discovered in the brushy basin member of the Morris information, which covered part of the late Jurassic. Its remains are known from near Kenton, Oklahoma and possibly New Mexico. Isotopic analysis of the Kenton Quarries indicate a peak temperature range of 40 to 50 degrees Celsius, which is well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. A 2020 study indicated that it was likely that the dinosaurs of the Kenton Quarries, including Saurophaganax and a host of sauropods and other herbivores, died during a phase of repeating droughts that made the terrain uninhabitable for animals their size. The Morrison was a semi-arid landscape, mainly dry with some fluvial environments, and it's possible that the Kenton quarries represent the last traces of water.
The surviving megafauna would have all gathered together in desperation, forming a death trap for herbivores and carnivores alike as the water dwindled to nothing. What animals did Saurophaganax live with anyway? While it was clearly the apex predator in its environment, it was far from the only large carnivore.
Allosaurus was very common in the area, along with the bulky bobblehead Torvosaurus, the edgy Ceratosaurus, and small predators like Ornitholestes, among others. and there were herbivores galore to serve as snacks for snacks. Relatively wee fellows like Camptosaurus and Dryosaurus may have been too swift for the heavily built theropod to rely on as a food source, but bigger quadrupeds like Stegosaurus could have been on the menu. The biggest source of protein for our friend Swolosnax, however, would have been the numerous sauropods it lived with and was adapted to hunt.
Camarasaurus, Brachiosaurus, Diplodocus, Berosaurus, and other fragmentary apotosaurians dominated the gigantic herbivore niche in the Brushy Basin member. These genera ranged in size from about 10 tons to potentially 60 tons or higher, in the case of the largest fragmentary brack and barrow specimens. Obviously, Sorphagnyx wouldn't have hunted the biggest adults, which were too large for any carnivore to take on alone, but its bulky build and massive arms and claws would have been great tools for hooking into sauropod flesh.
It was not adapted for speed. The fourth trochanter on its femur, associated with muscle attachments that enhance speed, was poorly developed compared to other large theropods, indicating that adults were not likely to be going after fast prey. Notice that I said the biggest adult sauropods of the area were too big for any carnivore to take down, alone.
The thing is, saurophagonex may not have been a solo act. Each instance of the genus has been discovered in bone pits, with a jumble of individuals of varying sizes altogether. This could represent gregariousness or pack hunting, although it's also possible that multiple lone wolf individuals showed up to take advantage of the high concentration of herbivores at a water source. It's certainly worth thinking about. Now let's get to know the Snacks Pack.
There are over a dozen Kenton specimens known from a large size range, each with their own codename. We have Munchkin, Scrymere, Loki, Yoten, Hati, Skull, Mimir, Baldur, Typhon, Orion, Fenris, Ragnarok, and Leviath. While none of these represent a complete skeleton, there's enough overlapping material from the Kenton pits that we have a pretty decent idea of the animals'proportions.
The specimen Fenris is the best for scaling. since it has weight-bearing limb bones preserved along with other post-cranial material. Scaling from Allosaurus and accounting for the deeper proportions, Fenris is about 5.3 metric tons. That's already well into African elephant territory and solidly places Sorphaganax in the soldier tier of megatheropods by itself.
Leviathan is the true giant of the group. It's known from at least a gigantic dorsal vertebra, which show low variability within individuals and are pretty solid for scaling. While I can't share the precise measurements, I will tell you that Leviathan's D13 is nearly the same size as the Corsair.
corresponding bone in Sioux. That would result in a 12.8 meter 8,300 kilogram leviathan based on Fenris. That range is comparable to many specimens of Tyrannosaurus.
It makes Allosaurus look puny by comparison and is two to three tons heavier than the next largest North American theropod, Acrocanthosaurus. Let's check an updated list of the biggest theropod individuals of the top species, now that we have a new kid on the block. In first place is E.D. Cope, representing Tyrannosaurus with a mass range of 11.5 to 11.7 tons.
Second is our friend the giant Giga dentary specimen, we're being very liberal here with a 10.1 ton estimate given the high degree of individual variation in theropod dentaries. And in third place is Leviathan, by far the biggest reliable sorophaginix specimen at 8.3 tons. It went from a relatively obscure maybe allosaurus to bigger than the carchrodontosaurus holotype and biggest spinosaurus specimen, which were about 8.2 tons. Now this is scaling from a bulky allosaurus, but sorophaginix's placement may not be as clear as generally thought.
Preliminary analysis of the Kenton material has uncovered some skeletal similarities to carchordontosaurs, particularly in the ilium and vertebrate, that may indicate a more complex picture. If Saurophaginax was really a basal carchordontosaur rather than allosaurid, its more robust proportions would increase its mass yet again. It's hypothetical for now, but further research into its anatomy will uncover even more about the warship of theropods. And did I mention that its bones were radioactive? A huge thank you goes to The Bone Pit, the mega-sauropod channel member that not not only requested this video, but made it possible with his groundbreaking research into SNAX that has spanned years.
Keep an eye out for his upcoming paper which will go into even greater detail. Thank you to special guest Brian Curtis for providing his thoughts on SNAX's taxonomy, to the incredibly talented Ivana Borghi for creating the Leviathan model and animations, Badvisor for making these augmented reality integrations possible, Paleo artist Redhead Rex for the amazing thumbnail art, and Derpy Stego and Lamberlobator for scaling and creating the gorgeous skeletal scene in this video. This project was a team effort.
Thank you all for being a part of it. Make sure to subscribe for more paleontology news and analysis, and join the channel to help me bring you more videos. There are always exciting projects in the pipeline, and I'm stoked to share them with you. I'm the Vividen, and I'll see you next time.