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Post by Josh Canfield on Mar 5, 2015 0:46:04 GMT
Rather than being carnivores (meat eaters), the largest dinosaurs such as the Brachiosaurus and Apatosaurus were actually herbivores (plant eaters).
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Post by Josh Canfield on Mar 5, 2015 0:46:24 GMT
To help fight meat eaters such as the Allosaurus or Spinosaurus, many plant eaters had natural weapons at their disposal. Examples of this include the spikes on the tail of the Stegosaurus and the three horns attached to the front of the Triceratops’s head shield.
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Post by Josh Canfield on Mar 5, 2015 1:00:22 GMT
Pterodactyls are not dinosaurs, they were flying reptiles that lived during the age of dinosaurs but by definition they do not fall into the same category. The same goes for water based reptiles such as Plesiosaurs.
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Post by Josh Canfield on Mar 5, 2015 1:00:45 GMT
Birds descended from a type of dinosaurs known as theropods.
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Post by Josh Canfield on Mar 5, 2015 1:01:01 GMT
Despite being long extinct, dinosaurs are frequently featured in the media. One of the more memorable examples of this is Michael Crichton’s 1990 book Jurassic Park. Adapted to movie in 1993, the story features cloned dinosaurs brought to life with the help of DNA found in mosquitoes trapped in amber.
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Post by Josh Canfield on Mar 5, 2015 1:02:27 GMT
The Longest Dinosaur
The longest dinosaur was Seismosaurus, which measured over 40 metres, as long as five double-decker buses. It was related to diplodocus, which for a long time held the honour.
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Post by Josh Canfield on Mar 5, 2015 1:02:52 GMT
The Heaviest Dinosaur
The heaviest dinosaur was Brachiosaurus at 80 tonnes. It was the equivalent to 17 African Elephants. Brachiosaurus was 16m tall and 26m long and is the largest dinosaur skeleton to be mounted in a museum.
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Post by Josh Canfield on Mar 5, 2015 1:03:18 GMT
The Smallest Dinosaur Egg - How To Tell a Dinosaur Egg from a Rock?
Dinosaur eggs come in all shapes and sizes. They tend to be ovoid or spherical in shape and up to 30cm in length - about the size of a rugby ball. The smallest dinosaur egg so far found is only 3cm long. Once the egg has been fossilised it will become hard like rock, but it will retain a structure of its own.
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Post by Josh Canfield on Mar 5, 2015 1:03:33 GMT
The Smallest Dinosaur
The smallest fully-grown fossil dinosaur is the little bird-hipped plant-eater like lesothosaurus, which was only the size of a chicken. Smaller fossilised examples have been found, but these are of baby dinosaurs.
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Post by Josh Canfield on Mar 5, 2015 1:04:11 GMT
The Most Brainy Dinosaur
One of the most intelligent dinosaurs was Troodon. It was a hunting dinosaur, about 2 metres long, and had a brain size similar to that of a mammal or bird of today, stereoscopic vision, and grasping hands.
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Post by Josh Canfield on Mar 5, 2015 1:04:28 GMT
The Dumbest Dinosaur
Stegosaurus had a brain the size of a walnut - only 3 centimetres long and weighing 75 grams. However, comparing brain size to body size sauropodomorphs, like Plateosaurus, were probably one of the dumbest dinosaurs.
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Post by Josh Canfield on Mar 5, 2015 1:04:55 GMT
The Tallest Dinosaur
The tallest dinosaurs were the Brachiosaurid group of sauropods. Their front legs were longer than the rear legs giving them a giraffe-like stance. This combined with their extremely long necks, which were held vertically, meant they could browse off the tallest trees. Brachiosaurus - the most well known of the group - was 13 metres tall. Sauroposeidon was massive and probably grew to 18.5 metres tall making it the tallest dinosaur.
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Post by Josh Canfield on Mar 5, 2015 1:05:27 GMT
The Fastest Running Dinosaur
The speediest dinosaurs were the ostrich mimic ornithomimids, such as Dromiceiomimus, which could probably run at speeds of up to 60 kilometres per hour.
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Post by Josh Canfield on Mar 5, 2015 1:05:49 GMT
The Oldest Dinosaur
The oldest dinosaurs known are 230 million years old, and have been found in Madagascar. As yet they have not been formally named. Before this Eoraptor, meaning "dawn thief" had held the title at 228 million years.
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Post by Josh Canfield on Mar 5, 2015 1:06:12 GMT
The Longest Dinosaur Name
The dinosaur with the longest name was Micropachycephalosaurus meaning "tiny thick-headed lizard". Its fossils have been found in China, and it was named in 1978 by the Chinese paleontologist Dong.
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