Dinosaurs
Dinosaurs
Dinosaurs
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+ Living Reptiles -
olgolors ond
crocodes
Thecodonts
ancestors of
the dinosaurs
Lynognolhus
the fshes and the amphibians are laid in
water, to keep the eggs from dring out,
and the baby animals that hatch from
them are water animals. The egg of a
reptile is a land egg .. It is a private hatch
er pool for the little reptile growing in
side it. Because of such eggs, the reptiles
were free to exploit the land.
Like the fshes and amphibians, the
reptiles are cold-blooded. They cannot
regulate their body temperature the way
the warm-blooded birds and mammals
North
America ,
,
Europe
and
Asia
eq;to,------ ------------
South
America
Africa
Madagascar
0
'(
o''
o
1\"'t
Antarctica
do. Instead, their bodies are the same
temperature as the air or water around
them. Today, only small reptiles live where
the winters are ver cold. Yet fossils from
far northern lands, among them the island
of Spitsbergen, tell that large dinosaurs
once lived there. Others, from Antarctica,
reveal that good-sized reptiles used to
live on that now-frozen continent at the
bottom of the world.
Clearly the climate in these widely
separated regions of the earth was milder
North
America
Europe
and
Asia
equato;------
-
---------
North
America
South
America
Africa
Europe
and
Asia
Antarctica
South
America
Africa
/Madagascar
o
\tl
Antarctica
North
America
Europe
and
Asia
-equal----------------
South
Africa
America
Antarctica
than it is now. It is not surprising, then,
that in that balmier time the dinosaurs
were wdespread.
But how had dinosaurs, which are land
animals, managed to travel between re
gions separated by hundreds-in some
cases thousands-of miles of sea? Dino
saur fossils like some found in Europe,
for instance, tum up in rock layers of
Australia and Madagascar, both remote
from all other land.
Some geologists have said that, in such
cases, the animals must have crossed the
sea on land bridges no longer in existence
or by island hopping-going from island
to island, that is, and so covering long
stretches in short stages. Others have ar
gued that the animals might have been
able to swim long distances.
Many scientists, however, have for years
had the idea that the answer lies in the
location of the continents. They say that
the continents were not always spread out
over the globe as they are now but, in
stead, over millions of years, drifed to
their present, separated positions. At the
start of the Mesozoic, these scientists say,
all the lands of the earth were clumped to
gether in one huge supercontinent they call
Pangaea.
The maps show how they think the
continents came to be where they are now.
In the Triassic, the supercontinent began
to split apart. North America and Eurasia
formed one large northern continent :
Laurasia; and the four southern continents,
together with India, formed a southern
one: Gondwana. The Jurassic saw Ant
arctica separate from Africa and South
America, and India start drifing north
ward. By Cenozoic time, both South Amer
ica and Madagascar had broken away
from Africa, but it was not until well into
the Cenozoic that North America and
Greenland parted completely from Eu
rope, India jammed into Asia, and Austra
lia separated from Antarctica.
Studies made of the ocean foors bear
out the idea of continental drift. So does
evidence, found in the rocks, of apparent
wanderings of the earth's north magnetic
pole. So, too, do such fossil fnds as those
of the mammal-like reptile Lystrosaurus,
with its plant and animal neighbors, in
rock layers in Antarctica;_ these layers are
of the same age as those containing sim
ilar fossils in South Africa. Today most
scientists agree with the idea of conti
nental drift.
1 3
The Rul i ng Repti l es
Sal toposuchus
You have already seen, on pages 10
and 1 1, that two of the branches on the
big center limb of the tree diagram rep
resent the dinosaurs, and the other two
branches, the fying reptiles and the croco
dilians. These four groups, together wit
the thecodonts from which they came,
are known as the archosaurs, or ruling
reptiles. The name comes from archos, a
Greek word meaning "ruler. "
Saltoposuchus is one of the best known
of the thecodonts. This early ruling rep
tile is often spoken of as the grandfather
of the dinosaurs. Like many of its famous
dinosaur descendants, Saltoposuchus ran
or leaped about on two long, strong hind
legs, its muscular tail streaming out be
hind. The long, heavy tail balanced the
forward tilt of the animal's body.
Looking at Saltoposuchus as it darted
about in search of a small lizard or drag
onfy to get -its teeth into, you probably
wouldn't have dreamed that it would one
day have "grandchildren" the length of a
locomotive and the weight of more than
half a dozen elephants. Saltoposuchus
was about the size of an undernourished,
unfeathered turkey gobbler.
14
The most specialized of the thecodont
descendants-except, of course, for the
birds-were the pterosaurs. This group
developed wings-wings quite diferent
from those of birds-and took to the air.
The pterosaurs may even have been some
what warm-blooded.
The least specialized were the croco
dilians, though a few, in the course of
time, developed special adaptations for
life in the sea .. Some crocodiles of today,
too, can live in salt water. The croco
dilians are the only ruling reptiles that
survived the "time of the great dying" at
the close of the Mesozoic.
Of ruling reptiles, the superstars, of
course, are the dinosaurs. The creatures
are fascinating partly because of the enor
mous size many of them reached and
partly because they dominated the earth
for so long and then disappeared com
pletely. Why these animals lived so long
and
.
then disappeared is a question scien
tists have never been able to answer.
The "X-ray" views of the hip joints of
the dinosaurs in the pictures show the
chief distinction between the members of
the two big dinosaur groups. The lizard
hip dinosaur group (Saurischians), repre
sented here by Gorgosaurus and Cam
arasaurus, is the one to which most of the
dinosaurs we think of as typical belong
the giant plant eaters and meat eaters.
All the meat-eating, or carnivorous, dino
saurs belong here. The bird-hip dinosaurs
(Orithischians), represented in the pic
tures by Camptosaurus and Stegosaurus,
were 100 percent plant-eating, or herbiv
orous. Both groups included dinosaurs
that walked on four legs and those that
walked on two.
For nearly 1b mi l l ion years, these four groups
otrepti les ruled the earth. Of these, only the
crocodi lians survived. Shown above i s an al l igator,
a li" vi ng relative of thi s anci ent group.
Gorgosaurus
Camptosaurus
Stegosaurus
Crocodilians
Al l igator
Pterosaurs (fying reptiles)
Lizard-Hip Dinosaurs
Camarasaurus
Bird-Hip Dinosaurs
Brachiosaurus
16
Giant Pl ant Eaters
This picture introduces you to the giant
of giants, Brachiosaurus, the biggest ani
mal, so far as scientists have found, that
ever walked the earth. The only bigger
animals known-today's giant whales
live in the sea. Brachiosaurus, however,
with a weight of 50 tons and a length of
80 feet, approached half the weight of the
biggest whale-the big blue whale, or sul
phur-bottom-and measured almost as
long. In height, Brachiosaurus outranks
all other animals, past and present. With
its head held high it stood over 40 feet
tall. The big reptile could easily have
looked over the top of a three-story build-
Plateosaurus
ing-supposing there were such a building
150 million years
a
go.
The name Brachiosaurus means "arm
lizard. " The name comes from the fact
that this dinosaur did not follow the usual
dinosaur pattern of having front legs short
er than the hind legs.
Although Brachiosaurus would certainly
have been frightening to meet, it was not
one of the dinosaurs that earned for them
the name "terrible lizard. " Brachiosaurus
was a slow-moving, harmless creature that
ate nothing but plants. It was also slow
witted. In spite of it
s
enormous size, the
big plant eater had a brain smaller than
a kitten's. In proportion to its weight,
Brachiosaurus got by with fewer ounces
of brain than any other back boned animal
we know about.
The group of giant plant eaters to which
Brachiosaurus belonged are ofen called
the amphibious dinosaurs, because most
scientists think they spent much of the
time in swamps and ponds, where the
water helped to hold up their heavy bodies.
Even though their legs were like tree
trunks, the great weight of these dinosaurs
must have been a tremendous burden.
Yal eosaurus
Brachiosaurus, with its long neck and long
front legs, could stand in deep water and
still have its head out of water. Actually,
it needed only the top of its head clear
of the water, for its nostrils were located
in a bony crest at the top.
Brachiosaurus and its fellow waders had
teeth suitable for eating soft plant food.
They must have spent most of their days
cropping water plants, for their enormous
bodies needed tremendous amounts of
food. Clearly the creatures were well ft
ted for such a life, for they survived, in
one part of the world or another, for 100
million years! Fossils of Brachiosaurus
have been found in such widely separated
areas as North America, Europe, and Af
rica. Skeletal remains thought to be its
bones have been found in Asia, too.
Yaleosaurus and Plateosaurus were
forerunners of Brachiosaurus and the
other giant plant eaters. They were not
nearly as large as those later giants, but
they certainly were not small. Plateosaurus
was about 20 feet long, Yaleosaurus about
8 feet.
Both of these early dinosaurs could
walk on just their hind legs as well as on
17
Camarasaurus
all fours. Probably they stayed on all fours,
except when they were in a hurry. Their
teeth were ftted for eating plant food
rather than meat.
In the picture, Y aleosaurus is brown
and Plateosaurus green. Y aleosaurus has
stripes across its back, while Plateosaurus
has a mixture of stripes and splotches.
Actually, no one kno
w
s what color either
these or any other dinosaurs were or what
markings they had. Artists can only guess,
from the color and markings of modem
reptiles. Common reptile colors today are
brown and green. Markings, moreover,
help today's reptile to hide from meat
eating enemies. It is a good guess that
these two dinosaurs were ofen hunted by
meat eaters of the time and that they had
1 8
markings of one kind or another that
helped to conceal them among the shad
ows and plants.
Just as Brachiosaurus was the giant of
the amphibious dinosaurs, Camarasaurus
was the pygmy. It was only about a third
as long as Brachiosaurus. Even so, it
weighed many tons and followed the same
general body patter-that is, a big body,
a long neck and tail, and a small head
with a tiny brain inside. The skull of
Camarasaurus has been compared with
that of a bulldog. It was short, and the
jaws were heavy. The teeth in the big
plant eater's jaws, however, were not
much like a bulldog' s.
Diplodocus, another record holder, was
the longest of the amphibious dinosaurs.
From the tip of its jaws to the end of its
tail, Diplodocus measured nearly 100
feet-one-third the length of a football
feld or, put in another way, the length
of seven or eight elephants marching trunk
to tail. Imagine Diplodocus in such a
parade!
Diplodocus was far more slender than
big Brachiosaurus. It weighed a mere 25
tons, give or take 5 tons.
The name Diplodocus means "double
beam. " The dinosaur was given the name
because it reminded scientists of a kind
of scale for weighing-a balance with
beams. Its ver long neck just about bal
anced its very long tail.
On its feet Diplodocus had broad pads,
much like those of an elephant. Some of
the toes were clawed. Probably they kept
it from sliding around in the mud. All
Dipl odocus
the amphibious dinosaurs had feet very
much like those of Diplodocus.
Like Brachiosaurus and the other giant
plant eaters, Diplodocus had only a tiny
brain. Along the spinal cord, however,
these dinosaurs had knots of nerve cells,
called ganglia, that controlled the legs and
tail. When we wish to move any part of
our body, a message must go along nerves
to the muscles in that part of the body.
Suppose, as you are washing your hands
under the faucet, the water suddenly gets
too hot for comfort. A pain message travels
along nerves from your hands to your
brain. Then a message goes back from
your brain to the muscles of your hands,
and you pull your hands away. It all hap
pens almost as quick as a wink, because
the messages to and from your brain have
only a short distance to travel.
Suppose, however, an enemy grabbed
Diplodocus by the end of its long tail.
It would take a large part of a minute
for the danger message to go the 90 feet
or so to the dinosaur's brain and for the
return message to tell the muscles to lash
the tail at the enemy. In that time, the
end of the tail might be gone. Having a
"helper brain" (ganglion) closer to the
tail and legs was certainly an advantage.
19
Diplodocus and Camarasaurus may
ofen have come face-to-face with Brach
iosaurus, for they, too, were common in
what is now North America. Another
giant whose bones are found with theirs
is Brontosaurus, the best known of all the
big plant eaters and one of the frst to be
discovered. Brontosaurus, as you can see,
looked much like Camarasaurus, but
Brontosaurus was over twice the length
of Camarasaurus and weighed many tons
more. However, it lacked some 15 feet
of being as long as Diplodocus and some
15 or 20 tons of being as heavy as the
giant Brachiosaurus.
The name Brontosaurus means "thunder
lizard. " The scientists who frst found and
20
put together the bones of its skeleton
thought that when so big a creature walked
about, the ground shaking underfoot must
have rumbled like thunder. The big foot
print pictured on page 6 records one of
its thunderous footsteps. It is easy to see
that the great dinosaur would have crushed
any small animal it stepped on. As with
all the giant plant eaters, Brontosaurus,
aside from sheer bulk, had no weapons
other than its long tail for protection
against enemies. The whiplash from such
Brachiosaurus
Di pl odocus
I
a tail, however, would really be something
to watch out for.
Some of the reptiles of today are long
lived. The giant tortoise, in fact, holds
the record for long life among animals.
It may live to be 150 years old. Scientists
cannot tell how long dinosaurs lived. Some
say that Brontosaurus may have lived to
be 1,000 years old. Others believe that
200, or at most 300, years is a better
guess. Still others say less than 100.
It would be easier for scientists to get
an idea of how fast the big dinosaurs grew
and how old they lived to be if there were
fossils of newly hatched and young and
middle-aged