The biggest land animal today, is the African elephant that weighs "only" 6 tons. While most large terrestrial mammals are Paraceratherium rhinoceros that lived 30 million years ago with a weight of 15 tons.
Then why dinosaurs could be very big? Why is there no land animal is capable of it before and after that time?
"We now have a theory of how the body formed a giant dinosaur," said Martin Sander, palaeontologi expert from the University of Bonn in Germany.
For six years, Sander led a team of international scientists to study the process meraksasa. The giant body caused a number of biological features that go to make a size unparalleled.
Sander began the observations made palaeontologi expert Edward Drinker Cope of the 19th century that show the size of the bigger animals in line with evolution. This process is known as Cope's rule.
Being big is one of the advantages of evolution, said David Hone Cope rules expert from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, China. "The size of the prey will be more difficult and more easy to beat competitors in merebutkan food or a partner," he said.
"But large animals more vulnerable to extinction, because the large size eat more and breed more slowly than small. So the problem is the greater, especially in the current difficult times and when food is hard to find," he added.
Dinosaur body enlarged because of natural selection. But on the other hand, it was as a punishment. The level of balance makes the land animals do not exceed 10 tons.
Size also cause many problems. How should support a large size, how to provide adequate food and oxygen and how to prevent the body from over-heating
