Dinosaur size

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Size is an important aspect of dinosaur paleontology, of interest to both the general public and professional scientists. Dinosaurs show some of the most extreme variations in size of any land animal group, ranging from tiny hummingbirds, which can weigh as little as two grams, to the extinct titanosaurs, such as Argentinosaurus and Bruhathkayosaurus^[1] which could weigh as much as 50–130 t (55–143 short tons).

The latest evidence suggests that dinosaurs' average size varied through the Triassic, early Jurassic, late Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, and dinosaurs probably only became widespread during the early or mid Jurassic.^[2] Predatory theropod dinosaurs, which occupied most terrestrial carnivore niches during the Mesozoic, most often fall into the 100–1,000 kg (220–2,200 lb) category when sorted by estimated weight into categories based on order of magnitude, whereas recent predatory carnivoran mammals peak in the range of 10–100 kg (22–220 lb).^[3] The mode of Mesozoic dinosaur body masses is between one and ten metric tonnes.^[4] This contrasts sharply with the size of Cenozoic mammals, estimated by the National Museum of Natural History as about 2 to 5 kg (4.4 to 11.0 lb).^[5]