Argentinosaurus is a member of a group of dinosaurs that are the biggest animals ever to have lived on land - the Sauropods. This giant size presents a lot of questions for palaeontologists to answer about how they lived: how did they eat enough to survive? how did they breed? how quickly did they grow? and how did they move around?
This last question is particularly tricky, especially when we consider that Argentinosaurus was at least 10 times heavier than an elephant. New research has used computer models to investigate how these giant animals could move as the problem comes down to the maths behind the movement. Let me explain:
As the length of an animal increases, the weight of the animal increases by a cube (power of 3) because the weight is a property of the animals volume. However the force that the muscles can generate only goes up by a square (power of 2) because they are limited by the area of muscle connection to the bone.
The conclusion is that these animals are at the limit of the size that flesh and bone can support on land but they must have had lots of adaptations to cope with the stresses on their bodies - such as limited joint movement to keep them steady. Clearly, size isn't everything.
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