Sauropods Lecture Notes

Flashcards about Sauropods

Diplodocus

A giant dinosaur from Montana that lived 153 million years ago, weighing as much as four elephants and as long as three school buses.

Ground Cover (ferns and horsetails)

The primary diet of Diplodocus based on scratch marks found on the teeth.

Apatosaurus

A 25 metric ton, 23 meter long sauropod that ate mostly ground level plants.

Camarasaurus

A 15 meter long sauropod that ate tougher shrub sized plants and short trees.

Size Advantage

An advantage of being big which makes you harder to attack and eat.

Sauropods

The largest animals that ever walked on land.

Argentinosaurus

A sauropod from the Cretaceous period of Argentina, which got to be 35 meters long and could have weighed as much as 70 metric tons.

Sauropodomorphs

The larger group of dinosaurs called sauropod-like dinosaurs.

Volcanodon

An early Jurassic dinosaur from Zimbabwe that paleontologists think the first sauropods probably looked something like.

Feeding Envelope

The space within which an animal can reach food without having to move around too much.

Giraffatitan

A 26 meter long sauropod from Tanzania, estimated to have weighed as much as 78 tons.

Supersaurus

The longest necked sauropod found so far, with a 15 meter long neck.

Morrison Formation

The area in Montana where Diplodocus and many other sauropods lived where 10 different genera can be found.