So, our guest comes from America during the Lower Cretaceous period (125-112 million years ago).
These are the times when the ancestors of tyrannosaurs were the size of a ninth grader and occupied the ecological niche of small dirty tricks like Velociraptors. It was then, on the lands still untouched by the capitalists, that he came - 11 meters tall, under seven tons, a muscular programmer (There is no other explanation for the hump, after which he was nicknamed "the spiked lizard").
However, my synapsid friend, acrocantosaurus was good not only in the virtual world, but also in life. First of all, the newly-minted giant destroyed his allosauroid grandfathers. After that, he became the main predator of these places. It is not surprising, because in comparison with other toothy creatures and those who like to wear rooster feathers, the acrocantosaurus was huge. Although the “spiked lizard” is smaller in size than its younger brothers in the family, such as the South American Giganotosaurus and the North African Carhodontosaurus, it is still one of the largest carnivorous dinos that lived on earth.
Approximate ratio of acrocantosaurus to humans.
Legs are relatively short (relative to other carnivorous theropods). The forelegs are also not long, but massive. These are not Tirex's stumps. Equipped with large claws. Powerful straight neck, muscles on the back and, mentioned above, the processes that gave the name to the reptile. All in all, this beast consisted of muscles, teeth, thorns, and hatred.
Further. The skull of this thug was not much different from relatives. Low and narrow, it reached 1.3 meters in length. The jaws resembled scissors with which he cut the bodies of other dinosaurs, pulling out pieces of meat from the still living victim. It is not difficult to guess that this manner of hunting caused violent bleeding and excruciating, extremely painful death (Although there is a theory that the phenomenon of pain itself had a completely different nature in dinosaurs, but more on that another time).
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Unlike its siblings, the acre was less fussy and more aggressive. Throwing himself at everything he sees. Any herbivorous giants that this impudent muzzle could reach could become a zakusa. For example, the dodgy tricksters tenontosaurs, the fleshy nuts of the ankylosaurids, as well as hefty guys with long necks such as sauroposeidons and astrodons.
The sexual adventures of this monster remain shrouded in darkness. We did not observe traces of genitals among the fossil remains, but most likely their mating process was not much different from other giant theropods. In any case, this is just guesswork. They try to tie the meat hump on the neck, as is usually the case, with a sex ornament to attract ladies. It took an acre at least 12 years to reach its maximum size in the dinosaur world. In the first years of their lives, they filled the scale of experience, biting on the feathered deinonychus. The reptile reached maturity only by 18 - 24 years.
The only thing in which the acre and its brothers in the family were losing to much smaller, but close to birds, tyrannosaurids and deinonychosaurs, was in the brains. Apparently, the brain of the acrocantosaurus looked more like a crocodile than an avian one. But who needs gray matter when your face is deadly scissors?
As you can see, great carnivorous dinosaurs walked on the earth, which are not Tirexes and, moreover, are not closely related to them. Tyrannosaurus has a much greater affinity with chicken than with our today's guest! As for the acrocantosaurus, then, apparently, he was one of the best predators on the planet. Its extinction led to the loss of conscience among the tyrannosauroids and to the usurpation of power by the latter in the territories of the United States in the future. The ancestors of chickens terrorized the local inhabitants until the very end of the Cretaceous. So the extinction of one thug caused the appearance of another after 30 million years. Finally, not every carnivorous theropod is a Tyrannosaurus, but every Tyrannosaurus is a carnivorous theropod. So thank fate for the fact that all these horror stories died out, allowing people to break into people.
Thank you for not being alive!
