My build-up of great Japanese paleosculptor Shinzen's 1:40 scale Giganotosaurus.

Giganotosaurus

Giganotosaurus carolinii

Pronounced: Jig-an-o-toe-Saw-rus Diet:Carnivore (Meat-Eater) Name Means: "Giant Southern Lizard" Length: 43 feet (14 m) Height: 17 feet (5.5 m) Weight: 7-10(?) tons (6,800-9500 kilos) Time: Late Cretaceous - 100 MYA

Giganotosaurus was one big meat-eater! It may have been the biggest one of all, even bigger than T. rex. It lived in South America at a time when there were still large sauropods for it to eat. It had a very strong body and a mouth full of teeth like steak knives. Just its head alone was 6 feet (2 m) long!

A recent discovery in Argentina suggests that Giganotosaurus may have been as large as 46 feet (15 m). What is interesting is that there is another dinosaur found in North Africa, called Carcharodontosaurus that is almost identical - in fact, it may be the same genus. Since South America and Africa were still connected back then, it is possible they are very close relations.

Like T. rex, this dinosaur hunted in warm and swampy areas. Some of the sauropods of that time had armor on their backs in order to protect them from an attack from above and that kind of attack could only have come from a predator as large as Giganotosaurus. Two mass Giganotosaur burial sites in Patagonia, Argentina, found by Dr. Rodolfo Coria, an Argentine palaeontologist, suggest that these Theropods may have lived together in family groups, with individuals of various ages and sizes. Cooperative hunting would have been a distinct benefit considering that its main prey may well have been the Titanosaurid Argentinosaurus, which, estimates suggest, could grow to be 100 tons in weight(!)