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Natural History Museum  9            
9-2013 
  
  
    
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		 This is a much better shot of Triceratops which is easy 
		to recognize because of it's head. Triceratops is Greek for 
		"three-horned face," but this dinosaur had only two real horns, the 
		third much shorter "horn" on its snout was made from a different material. 
		It's skull was one third the length of its entire body and can grow 
		to 7 feet long. It is believed that fully grown Triceratops were about 
		26 feet long, 10 feet in height, and weighed anywhere between 6 to 12 
		tons.  
		Triceratops had anywhere between 400 and 800 teeth 
		although only a small percentage of these were in use at any one time as 
		they were constantly replaced throughout its lifetime. Their diet 
		consisted of plants and grass's unlike some of his cousins that ate 
		meat. Triceratops lived about 65 million years ago and was one of the 
		last dinosaurs standing. 
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		 Mamenchisaurus (pronounced 'Ma-man-chee-sore-uss') 
		was a long necked, long-tailed, 
		plant eating dinosaur. Mamenchisaurus means 'Mamenchi (China) lizard)' 
		and had the longest neck of any known 
		dinosaur except the newly found Sauroposeidon. His neck alone is 
		about 46 feet long, overall length is 70 to 80 feet long and weighed 
		roughly 12 tons. It had 19 vertebrae in its neck, more than any other 
		known dinosaur had. 
		 The long neck may have been used to poke into forests to 
		get foliage that was otherwise unavailable to smaller dinosaurs. Many 
		paleontologists believe that it used its massive neck to eat foliage on 
		the ground. They believe that Mamenchisaurus would have swung its neck 
		in a giant arc, eating everything it could eat. Then it would have taken 
		a step forward, and started the process over again. Mamenchisaurus lived 
		during the late Jurassic Period, from about 156 million to 145 million 
		years ago. He was a sauropod, whose intelligence (as measured by its 
		relative brain to body weight, or EQ) was among the lowest of the 
		dinosaurs. 
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        This is a close-up of Mamenchisaurus' lower half. The bones on this 
		dinosaur are impressively huge and look like tree trunks which makes 
		sense because of their massive weight.  
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        I could easily fit inside the ribcage and climb across the bones like a 
		jungle gym in a park. Impressive!  
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         Tyrannosaurus Rex was the king of the dinosaurs and was 
		very big and very dangerous. The name Tyrannosaurus Rex means; Tyranno 
		meaning 'tyrant', sauros meaning 'lizard' and Rex meaning 'king'. Here you see a trio of them, all at 
		different ages. The smallest is 2 years old, 11 feet long and is the 
		youngest known T. Rex fossil in the world. To his right is a 20 feet 
		long, 13 year old weighing about 4,000 pounds. The oldest at 17 years 
		old, 34 feet long and weighed nearly 7,000 pounds. All three fossils 
		were found in the badlands of Montana.  
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         No one knows why T. Rex's arms were so short. Did they 
		use their small arms to push itself off the ground after restful naps, 
		or to clasp struggling prey close to its chest? Or is it possible that 
		this predator's arms were completely useless and would have disappeared 
		entirely (as happened with snakes) after another few million years of 
		evolution? No one knows but it looks to me they didn't do enough bench 
		press and did way to much stepper  :-] 
		Based on the size and shape of its olfactory lobes 
		(nostrils), T. Rex seems to have had a very sensitive nose, which would 
		have helped it to hone in on living or dead and rotting prey. The 
		females were believed to be larger than the males and weighed more by a 
		few thousand pounds based on the size of existing fossils and the shapes 
		of their hips.  
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         Tyrannosaurus Rex had an incredibly powerful bite and 
		enormous teeth with knifelike serrations. 
		Scientists determined that T. Rex chomped on its prey with anywhere from 
		1,500 to 3,000 pounds of force, comparable to a modern alligator. But 
		more recent studies put that figure in the 5,000 pound range. For 
		comparison the average adult human can bite with a force of about 175 
		pounds. A bite that powerful may have been capable of shearing off a 
		Triceratops' horns.  
		As you can see I was having fun with this picture. 
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         It's hard to tell a dinosaur's life span from its fossil 
		remains, but based on an analysis of existing specimens, experts 
		speculate that Tyrannosaurus Rex may have lived as long as 30 years. And 
		since this dinosaur was on top of the food chain, it was most likely 
		killed by old age, disease, or hunger rather than attacks by another 
		dinosaur. It's estimated that T. Rex could gain at mid spurt about 1,500 
		pounds in a year. 
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         Camptosaurus was a plant eating dinosaur of the Late 
		Jurassic period where most were large. Camptosaurus was an exception, it 
		reached an adult weight of no more than 1,000 pounds. Camptosaurus means 
		'flexible lizard' and stood around five feet tall at the hips. Some paleontologists 
		compare Camptosaurus with a deer in today's forests. Camptosaurus 
		browsed on low vegetation and the chisel-like teeth on the sides of its jaws 
		were strong and well suited for crushing tough plants. Instead of front 
		teeth for nipping, the fronts of both jaws were covered with a beak. 
		Using its tail as a counterweight, Camptosaurus was 
		able to balance on its hind legs, leaving its arms for feeding and other 
		tasks, such as self defense. Fossilized tracks show evidence that Camptosaurus also walked on all fours at times. 
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         Stegosaurus is an armored dinosaur covered with 17 bony 
		plates that were embedded in its back which ran along its back and tail 
		in two rows, and the plates alternated in alignment. The largest of 
		these triangular plates was about 2.5 feet tall and just as long. 
		Stegosaurus also had spikes at the end of its flexible tail that could 
		be used as weapons. The name Stegosaurus means Roofed Lizard or Plated 
		Lizard. 
		Stegosaurus was 26-30 feet long long, 9 feet tall at the 
		hips and weighed about 7000 pounds. They were about the size 
		of a bus but had unusually small brains, only about the size of a 
		walnut. They were plant eaters but also ate rocks to help mash up the 
		tough vegetable matter in its enormous stomach, of which it would have 
		had to eat hundreds of pounds a day. This one was found in Utah and it's 
		around 150 million years old. 
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