Unfortunately there has only one specimen that has been discovered so far but at around 2.3 - 3 metres tall with a 71 cm long skull (and 45.7 cm brutal hatchet of a beak) it was one of the largest of the Phorusrhacids.

http://i878.photobucket.com/albums/a...comparison.jpg

http://www.wired.com/2014/03/absurd-...k-terror-bird/

http://www.prehistoric-wildlife.com/.../kelenken.html

I cannot remember if I have posted this before on here - just a rather nice size comparison between -

Boeing 737-900.

African Elephant - the largest living land animal.

Paraceratherium - probably the largest land mammal ever to exist.

Hatzegopteryx - one of the largest pterosaurs.

Carcharodontosaurus - one of the largest carnivorous dinosaurs.

Argentinosaurus - one of the largest sauropods.

Blue Whale - the heaviest animal ever to exist (unless we find bigger dinosaurs and I think we could in future).

Homo sapiens - the apex predator of the planet.

http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs71/f/20...ca-d5zk3fx.jpg

Some rather nice 'impressionist' style Deinonychus and Utahraptor illustrations.

http://orig02.deviantart.net/4efb/f/...us-d8pi2dc.png

http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs71/i/20...ts-d8id9p1.jpg

Another reconstruction of Utahraptor.

http://img11.deviantart.net/527b/i/2...on-d8o5uip.jpg

A few interesting stories to finish the day before I go offline.

The superb new Tyrannosaurus exhibit at Museum of the Rockies (with a short video) is my favourite of these links.

http://www.montana.edu/news/15478/ne...ssilized-t-rex

http://dinogoss.blogspot.com/2015/04...r-history.html

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/socie...southern-china

http://www.thereporteronline.com/gen...encin-township

A few of the latest discoveries that may be of interest - the Kronosaurus illustration is rather mediocre so I will link to a much better one after the story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jRm...ature=youtu.be

http://www.sciencewa.net.au/topics/t...inosaur-tracks

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-2...iosaur/6407996

http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs71/i/20...tu-d65d5dg.jpg

After a long time consigned the outer darkness the brontosaurus has made a surprise reappearance. He is no longer a slightly different apatosaurus.

Indeed the good old 'Thunder Lizard' is back!

http://img00.deviantart.net/c30b/i/2...do-d8pemi5.jpg

More on where young mosasaurs were born.

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic....rn-out-at-sea/

Some more nice reconstructions of Acheroraptor the youngest of the Dromaeosaurids.

http://pre00.deviantart.net/d473/th/...or-d8kx6nr.png

http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/f/20...by-d6v54wy.jpg

http://img15.deviantart.net/1ad2/i/2...is-d8p2452.jpg

Sexual dimorphism in Stegosaurus.

Interesting but not very surprising - after all males are always poncing about trying to attract the attention of the ladies who mostly view their efforts with studied distain.

http://www.livescience.com/50569-ste...imorphism.html

http://uk.businessinsider.com/r-how-...ur-2015-4?r=US

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2...-study-reveals

http://www.latimes.com/science/scien...tes-story.html

I assumed there was already a method for determining sex, or are those names some times given to fossils simply arbitrary?

It is a very complicated subject.

Sexual dimorphism is one possible method.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_...m_in_dinosaurs

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...-in-dinosaurs/

Over the past few years an examination of the medullary bone seems another good way to differentiate between males and females in non-avian dinosaurs.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/scienc...4203014/?no-is

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic....ocked-in-bone/

And here is another new method of determining dinosaurian gender.

http://www.livescience.com/25948-din...ils-shake.html

http://www.nature.com/srep/2015/1503...srep09472.html

Yes, I saw that story too about good ol' Roof Lizard but on the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/32426698

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/art...l.pone.0123503

I have a plastic model of that dino and my cat likes to play with, paw it and try to bite it...which is why it is currently hidden away.

Interesting. You know, part of me still can't accept seeing
dinosaurs with feathers on, like that Ovirapter.

It is a hard adjustment to make for some - but nostalgia has no place in science. Spino-fanboys on the net are still blubbing that T.rex is still the heaviest and baddest of the theropods after all (JPIII has a lot to answer for).

Here is a brief article on a similar topic.

http://pteroformer.blogspot.co.uk/20...g-look-of.html

Personally I love the fact that most if not all dinosaurs would have had some sort of quills, proto-feathers or feathers.

The evidence does not lie.

The makers of Jurassic World cannot cope either which is why (for a number of reasons) it will be so bloody awful - naked dinosaurs, naked pterosaurs that look as if they are from a 19th century illustration, 'frilled' mosasaurs without tail flukes - what cobblers.

Such a shame.

Speculative Pterosaur embryos.

http://pteroformer.blogspot.co.uk/20...r-embryos.html

More on the fossil signs of those pesky Osedax bone eating worms.

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic....-eating-worms/

Another Stegosaurus sexual dimorphism article (from the beeb).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-32398027

The Spinosaurus in JPIII irritated me even back. When I heard that it was the star dino of the movie, I looked it up. Everything told me that it wasn't a match for T. Rex. I might have been able to forgive that if the film had been any good in other areas, but I hate it from beginning to end.

Don't expect any logic from JP III.

The scientific advisor for the film was Jack Horner who for many years played the Devil's advocate - he made the preposterous theory of Tyrannosaurus being an obligate scavenger a meme in the popular media.

It made him very famous and helped to fund all of the rest of his (really excellent) work - which was the main point I suppose.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ho...eontologist%29

The fact that in the fight the (undersized) rex had the (undersized) spino's neck between it's jaws and the massive theropod's bone-crushing multi-ton bite-force did not even pierce the skin is one reason why JP III is justifiably hated amongst people who know their dinosaur biomechanics.

One bite from a rex and the muscles, vertebra and spinal cord would have been utterly destroyed - game over for spino.

For what it is worth here is the official full trailer for Jurassic World.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJJrkyHas78

Lonely end for the world's last woolly mammoths:

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articl...24/4223129.htm

It is astonishing (and rather poignant) to think that the mammoths of Wrangel Island were still alive long after the Pyramids had been built.

An interesting little article on the 'shrink-wrapping' of plesiosaurs that is seen so very often in their reconstructions.

http://antediluviansalad.blogspot.co...t-vii-you.html

This has long been a problem in the illustration of dinosaurs as well - particularly in the 80's and 90's when it was fashionable to reconstruct a living animal to look on the point of death by starvation - like simply draping the skin over a skeleton - sauropods in particular.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...od-Zoology.jpg

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...-of-dinosaurs/

https://qilong.wordpress.com/2014/04...rink-wrapping/

Thankfully modern illustrations are much better showing the huge muscles that would have been needed to move the multi-ton skeletons of such vast creatures.

A few recent links that may be of interest some people.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...osaurus-thing/

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2015/s4223328.htm

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic....e-out-of-time/

Prehistoric mega-turtles size comparison charts.

Freshwater (from left to right).

Stupendemys geographicus, Carbonemys coffrini, a human and the modern Amazon river turtle Podocnemis expansa

http://th03.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/...c5-d70g8dj.jpg

Saltwater (from left to right).

Archelon ischyros, Protostega gigas and the modern Leatherback.

http://www.prehistoric-wildlife.com/...stega-size.jpg

I love turtles
When I was in Mexico I got to release some babies into the sea. I'll never forget it.

How lovely - that is a memory to really cherish!

Archelon skeleton.

http://www.euroturtle.org/photos/arch.jpg

http://www.bhigr.com/media/zoomslide...ton_2858-2.jpg

Blimey they are huuuge ! Do we know why the big ones died out ?

Archelon (like so many other species) became extinct at the end of the Cretaceous when the Chicxulub asteroid struck the Yucatan Peninsula.

The others like most animals probably became extinct due to climate or habitat change.

Look them up belly button - there is a lot of interesting information about the various mega-turtles on the net (and somewhere before on this thread).