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Cited by 324

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 26 of the 26 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Gigantism and comparative life-history parameters of tyrannosaurid dinosaurs

Open access
Erickson, Gregory M., Makovicky, Peter J., Currie, Philip J., Norell, Mark A., Yerby, Scott A., Brochu, Christopher A.·2004·Nature
DOI 10.1038/nature02699
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Abstract

How evolutionary changes in body size are brought about by variance in developmental timing and/or growth rates (also known as heterochrony) is a topic of considerable interest in evolutionary biology. In particular, extreme size change leading to gigantism occurred within the dinosaurs on multiple occasions. Whether this change was brought about by accelerated growth, delayed maturity or a combination of both processes is unknown. A better understanding of relationships between non-avian dinosaur groups and the newfound capacity to reconstruct their growth curves make it possible to address these questions quantitatively. Here we study growth patterns within the Tyrannosauridae, the best known group of large carnivorous dinosaurs, and determine the developmental means by which Tyrannosaurus rex, weighing 5,000 kg and more, grew to be one of the most enormous terrestrial carnivorous animals ever. T. rex had a maximal growth rate of 2.1 kg d-1, reached skeletal maturity in two decades and lived for up to 28 years. T. rex's great stature was primarily attained by accelerating growth rates beyond that of its closest relatives.

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Metadata

Authors
Erickson, G. M., Makovicky, P. J., Currie, P. J., Norell, M. A., Yerby, S. A., & Brochu, C. A.
Venue
Nature
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2004-08-12
Volume
430
Issue
7001
Pages
772-775
ISSN
  • 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
  • 1476-4687
DOI
10.1038/nature02699
OpenAlex
W1970959421
Cited by
324
References
26
FWCI
9.32
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
green

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Gigantism and comparative life-history parameters of tyrannosaurid dinosaurs. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1038/nature02699
The paper
Erickson, G. M., Makovicky, P. J., Currie, P. J., Norell, M. A., Yerby, S. A., & Brochu, C. A. (2004). Gigantism and comparative life-history parameters of tyrannosaurid dinosaurs. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02699

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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.