Dinosaur Size Comparison: Are Longer Dinosaurs Heavier? | Scale Side by Side #06

Using a bicycle as a reference, we line up small and giant dinosaurs at the same scale. We compare estimated total lengths, then switch to body weight. What changes when we change the measure?

The values we lined up

The dinosaur values are the Length / Weight figures at the top of each Dino Directory entry from the Natural History Museum, London. They are approximate numbers worked out from fossils (estimates) — not measurements of living animals, and not record maxima. In the video, lengths are shown as nose-to-tail distances on models with necks and tails extended. Weight is only compared for the two dinosaurs in the main comparison.

What this episode shows

• Lining up reference bicycles turns dinosaur lengths into an everyday distance you can picture.
• Under the estimates we used, there is a case where the order by length and the order by weight swap places.
• Dinosaur lengths and weights are estimates worked out from the fossils that remain and the reconstruction method used.