Like how?
In: Biology
Not an expert but I guess they’d estimate plausible proportions for each animal based on other discoveries, real life animals they evolved into, weight of the individual bone etc, or at least in comparison to humans. EG “wow that T. rex has a huge shin bone, and we know it ate X smaller animal. It’s torso was probably X size in order to hunt effectively , therefore all limbs and components = Z weight” ?
Compare it to the size of other animals that we know the weight of. If you have a tiny femur from an extinct mammal that is only 3 inches long, it probably weighed only a few lbs max. If it was like 2 feet long, you’re probably talking 100+ lbs. Bones that are really thick for their length are made to bear more weight. An elephant femur is about twice as long as a human femur, but 7-8x the diameter. So an elephant femur ends up being about 16x the total mass of a human femur. Bones built like this are used to carry heavy loads.
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