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Ginsu shark Probably- baseline Dire Shark might do. I'm not sure how closely related megalodon was to the lamnids- here: Lamniformes it's group is given as Otodontidae, and placed just below the lamnid sharks. On the other hand, this tree also places Basking sharks right at the bottom...

shark relationships Interestingly, Otodus isn't aways classed as a relative of the sandtiger. Here, it is described as ancestral to the porbeagle- and great whites and megalodons, while not that closely related, are still closer related than they are to the porbeagle: Great White Shark ...

animal sizes So, Orcas can be 16 ft Huge, 32 ft Gargantuan, Great Whites 14-15 ft Large, 18-20 ft Huge Megalodons 52 ft Gargantuan, 75 ft Colossal Sperm whales 35-60 ft Gargantuan, 70-80 ft Colossal? These seem like good baselines. (Though, for some reason, the Huge orca is described as...

weighing Sharks caught in fishing contests, even big ones, do, I think, get weighed pretty accurately- possibly a winch built for the purpose? That said, 4000 pounds (and anything from 17 to 21 ft long) is pretty reasonable for a Huge animal- it just gives it a rather short reach. Which could...

On comparing Great Whites to megalodons Great whites seem to vary a lot in proportions. The 1959 Alf Dean specimen (16.8333 ft, 2664 lb) appears to be much slimmer than than 1986 California specimen (17.6 ft, 4140 lb): http://www.elasmo-research.org/education/white_shark/overview.htm...

Source for chunky megalodon Reconstructing Megalodon Having done a few checks, 100 tons does look a bit overweight- other estimates look more like 60 tons for the 70ft version. Still- the general consensus does seem to be that it was chunkier than its smaller cousin. Also, after a lot of...

Megalodon They found vertabrae as well as teeth and jaws, and the teeth discovered are big. While early estimates got the jaws wrong, thus oversizing it considerably, later ones, based on the largest teeth discovered, do make it pretty hefty. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalodon...

The "Length = Space + Reach fore and aft" method, applied to whales: Estimates for rorqual whales- at the large end of each whale's size range: Blue Whale: 30 ft head slam, 40 ft Space, 40 ft tail slam Fin Whale: 30 ft head slam, 30 ft Space, 30 ft tail slam Pygmy Blue Whale: 20 ft head...

Strength Working out what the "appropriate" Str for a creature is, can be tricky. The closest thing to a guideline seems to be how much a creature can lift without being encumbered. Given the slimmer build, I think spinosaurs can get away with having a lower Str for their size, than...

There may be other ways- still- I like it because it makes the size graduation more continuous and less jumpy. On Con damage as bone-and-muscle crunching- Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords, has a similar effect, for one of the Stone Dragon manuevers. Though Dragon Magazine did it first-...

Remember that just because Spiny is long, doesn't mean he is especially big, bulk-wise- so he can have a fairly low Str- maybe check other gargantuan creatures? Tyrannosaurs might be a better candidate for Long Reach than other theropods- since they have proportionally longer legs and shorter...

Giant sea reptiles The main evidence for Pliosaurus macromerus growing to 18 m is one single 3 m lower jaw mandible at the Oxford museum. And there is also Predator X, and a few others, at around 15 m Hainosaurus growing to 17 m I've seen a lot of times. Mauisaurus (a long-necked...

More than Colossal About the only dinosaur that qualifies is Amphicoelias- and then, only if you're not using "very tight space" but are willing to place a 30 ft body on a 40 ft space. On marine reptiles- 25 metre Walking with Dinosaurs Liopleurodon could have fitted into normal Colossal (30...

Space I do also- when it comes to quadrupeds (ones at the smaller end won't reach all the way across space, but will still be "centred" with forelegs and hindlegs on either side of the Space.) But for bipeds- I figure the "centre of mass" should be roughly above the centre of the base- which...

Brachiosaurs and bipedal prosauropods On brachiosauroids- I'm a bit puzzled that Tail Reach range is phrased in terms of normal reach for them, when its phrased in terms of Space for the other two. This results in a Tail Reach of 10 ft rather than 15 ft at Large size- whereas "Tail reach =...

Ah, so twice the base reach, (not the bite reach), where base reach is assumed to be Short. If Long Necked could be applied to both standard sauropods and brachiosaurs, it can be used to represent both Mamenchisaurus and Sauroposeidon. (with Sauroposeidon as an Advanced Gargantuan...

Prosauropod stats These are nice- though I might trim the tail slap ranges down to equal to the Space. This would give an "effective length" so to speak (bite reach + space + tail length), of 25 ft for a Big prosauropod, and 40 ft for a Huge one. As it currently stands, they appear to...

Colossal+ Epic Handbook invented it, Draconomicon expanded on it. Oddly, the Devastation Vermin (and the Aspect of the Leviathan in Elder Evils) were only described as Colossal- despite their having a bigger Space. From what I can tell, Colossal+ dragons only get expanded Reach, not Space...

Alternative sizing option Instead of giving each of the three major types of sauropod (Standard, Slender, Heavy) different Bite and Tail Slap Reach values (since so many break them) why not split the Rech values off, giving them each their own names: Very Short (0.5 x Reach) Short(Reach)...

Brachiosaur-types For the Brachiosaur basic type, it gave a figure of twice the bite reach, for the tail- same proportions as the basic sauropod- which is the bit I was dubious about (since some have a tail reach (and bite reach) roughly the same length- such as Barapasaurus) Though the...