Size Estimates By Name Loop (Loops)

If dinosaur_lengths.csv is not already in your working directory download a copy of the data on dinosaur lengths with species names. Load it into R.

The following function estimates a dinosaur’s mass based on its length and name of its taxonomic group:

get_mass_from_length_by_name <- function(length, name){
  if (name == "Stegosauria"){
    mass = 10.95 * length ^ 2.64
  }
  else if (name == "Theropoda"){
    mass = 0.73 * length ^ 3.63
  }
  else if (name == "Sauropoda"){
    mass = 214.44 * length ^ 1.46
  }
  else {
    mass = NA
  }
  return(mass)
}

Update this function so that instead of returning NA when none of the species names matches it returns mass = 25.37 * length ^ 2.49 instead.

1. Use this function and a for loop to calculate the estimated mass for each dinosaur in dinosaur_lengths, store the masses in a vector, and after all of the calculations are complete show the first few items in the vector using head().
2. Add the results in the vector back to the original data frame and display first few rows of the new data frame using head().
3. Calculate the mean mass for each species using dplyr, using the data from you created in (2).