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| Studied dinosaur tracks and drew conclusions about the animal such as size, speed, leg length, as well as height and a probable diet |
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| Monster dinosaur (video: "Big Al") size of a two-story building. Jaw contained dagger-like teeth which were designed to kill |
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| Three Main Types of Dino Tracks |
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| Carnivores, Ornithopods, Sauropods |
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| (Allosaurus) Three sharp claws |
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| (Iguanodon) Three more rounded toes |
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| (Apatosaurus) More than 2' across; twice the size of an elephant's print |
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| A trackway was found in New England in 1802 (before we knew about dinos) and it was believed to be tracks of a giant bird, and thus given this name |
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| located in the foothills of the Rockies, Colorado. Trackway that contains thousands of footprints, which helped analyze the behavior and movements of dinos. |
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| Group of large quadrapedal dinos with long necks and tails |
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| Long necks allowed them to save energy - they could swing their heads around and graze over a large area without having to actually move its large body |
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| The tails were a counter-balance, helping to support the size and weight of the neck |
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| Sauropods - Bridge Anatomy |
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| Most were built like suspension bridges - the hips were like the towers and the massive sinews the cables |
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| Stomach stones. Moved around by muscular contractions and helped to grind up the tough plant fibers |
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| Air-cooled; they had air sacs in their bones which helped keep them cool |
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| Diploducus (Double Beam Lizard); Camarasaurus (Camber Lizard); Apatosaurus (Deceit Lizard; formerly 'Brontosaurus') |
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| another example of a Sauropod; had a 13 meter neck that was held basically parallel to the ground. |
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| Mamenchisarus - neck ribs |
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| Projected back from each vertebra, overlapping to support the neck as a whole. This restricted the neck's movements, allowing it to move it upwards or to the side, however it never moved more than 30 degrees. |
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| Mamenchisarus - Differences |
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| Different from other sauropods - he evolved in a different area, developed neck ribs, and evolved from Eoraptor, a small, goose-sized dino. |
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| "The Shield Bearer"; encased in armor |
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| Diamond-shaped plates ran across his back; had very large deltoid muscles which allowed him to turn around very quickly. Tail was a massive weapon which was four-pronged and spiked, and could take out any attacker with just one blow. |
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| Had a suit of armor made of 3" thick bone nodules which were fused together and covered with spikes |
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| 20' long, ~1000 lbs. 12" claws on his feet, 10" blade-like claws on hands, 2" teeth. Had the largest brain of any dino of its day. |
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| Vicious spikes lined his back and tail, swung the tail at predators and could just about c ut them in half. The blades on the tail could be moved together in a scissoring motion, which would slice an arm right off. |
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| Discovered both Utahraptor and Gastonia |
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| a floodplain in South Dakota; a famous Cretaceous burial ground - the first T.rex and Triceratops were found here |
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| "Thick-headed Reptile"; member of the boneheads. Had a skull up to 8" thick, but virtually no brain. |
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| Packycephalosaurus- skulls |
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| Some had flat skulls which were fringed with bony knobs (possibly used to engage in head-pushing contests). Others had exaggerated domes which were made up of solid bone with lumps, bumps, and spikes at the base of the skull |
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| Weighed up to 6 tons, size of trucks. Had very strong neck muscles. The strong dome heads were probably used in sexual combat. |
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| led the American Museum of Natural History's expedition of the 1920's to the Flaming Cliffs of the Gobi Desert in Magnolia, where the first dinosaur nest was discovered. Indiana Jones is modeled after him |
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| co-leader of the expedition to the Flaming Cliffs. studied dromaesaur fossils |
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| "Egg Thief" 8' long... smart, swift, and lethal. Razor sharp claws. Falsely accused of raiding the nests of Protoceratops |
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| "First Horned Face" had a head shield, but no actual horns |
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| Infants ate insects. Mothers protected their young for a few weeks, but then their maternal instincts wore off and they would begin to view them as food. After about 7 years, they will become full size. Considered to be "Opportunist Eaters" - they ate whatever they could |
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| geological unit in the Jefferson County locality in which Big Al was found |
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| Mixing of sediment in a bog which results in a deep column of mixed-up bones. Dinosaurs would be attracted to the bog because of the smell of the carcasses |
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| salt flats left by the retreat of an ancient sea |
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| Cone Bearing Plants. a dominant plant form, represented today by conifers such as pine or cypress trees |
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| look like palm trees, but aren't. they have tough, sharp-pointed leaves with clumps of dry, dead foilage at the top of the plant. They were very prominent in the Jurassic |
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| Stiff, sharply pointed leaves; different from the cycad because the new growth is nice and tender |
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| "living fossil" believed to have medicinal uses |
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| an allosauridae, one of the largest carnivores - rivalved T.rex in size |
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| discovered the Glen Rose (located in Texas) Trackway |
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| First horned/frilled dinos to appear in North America; an ancestor to Triceratops, although about 1/4 the size - about the size of a cow |
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| Raptors. They were the smartest, quickest, and most dangerous dinos alive, even if they were alone or in a pack. The claw on the foot works like a switch blade, with a tendon attached to the calf muscle to pull it into position. Shares over 30 anatomical features with birds |
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| Bird-like dino; evolved from carnivore to herbivore |
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| published "Origin of Species" in 1859. The first to postulate a possible bird-reptile evolutionary connection |
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| AKA Darwin's Bulldog; suggested that birds could have descended from dinos |
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| discovered Dinonychus; reignited the Darwin-Huxley hypothesis and changed the way we view dinosaurs |
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| expert on fossil birds; discovered Saltasaurus nesting ground |
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| "Old Wing" earliest known bird; the size of a pigeon. Regarded as the missing link between dinos and birds |
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| Archaeopteryx - bird features |
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| has a wishbone and asymmetric flight feathers |
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| Archaeopteryx - reptile features |
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| teeth, clawed fingers, and a tail of 21 vertebrae |
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| "Feathered Tail" Lower cretaceous, Chinese, feathered preadtory dino with symmetrical features... could not fly |
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| "Terrible Claw" - had a large claw on each foot; discovered by John Ostrom |
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| asymmetric feathers used to fly, works as an airfoil |
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| acquistion of similar features in unrelated lineages |
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| "Ground-Up" (Cursorial) Hypothesis |
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| idea that birds (Archaeopteryx) took a running start to taking off (like geese) |
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| "Trees-Down" (Arboreal) Hypothesis |
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| evolution of flight from trees to ground (like flying squirrels) |
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| lithographic limestone of Germany where the earliest known bird (Archaeopteryx) was found |
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| "Tyrant Lizard King"; discovered by Barnum Brown, a former Kansas-farm boy. T.rex had long powerful hind legs and dagger-like, saw-bladed teeth on each jaw |
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| studied T.rex and drew the conclusion that they walked, rather than ran. Said that T.rex was a scavenger rather than a predator, and that they had large nostrils and a good sense of smell |
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| studied emus to get an idea of how T.rex moved |
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| a great inland sea that covered the central US and went up through Western Canada |
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| Approx. 75% of species disappeared...conflicting extinction patterns (gradual, abrupt, and selective) |
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| Three Theories of Extinction |
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| Climate Change, Intense Volcanism, Asteroid Impact |
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| Ir anomaly - much more abundant in mantle; flood basalts; volcanic ash ar some K/T localities; fossil evidence for longer term changes |
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| Walter and Louis Alvarez were the first to present evidence for an impact: Iridium anomaly - rare in the Earth's crust but abundant in meterorites and presumably asteriods; shocked quartz - features produced by high pressure (associated with impacts); microtekites; and soot. Also the Yucatan Peninsula crater is large enough to support this theory |
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| warm-blooded; insulating hair, more efficent heart and lungs, solid jaw bones, larger brains, smell and hearing becomes more acute. most abandoned the external egg |
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| although mammals originated at about the same time as the dinos, throughout the Mesozoic they were about the size of a house cat |
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| have a pouch in which the immature young place themselves following birth. developed into kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, koala bears, tasmaninan devils, and tigers |
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| went through an explosive expansion during the Paleocene and Eocene that led to such groups as whales, bats, horses, and elephants |
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| became the dominant form on land, in the air, and in the sea. were on a evolutionary upswing until about 8,000 yrs ago when the climate became milder after the last glaciation, and prehistoric man populated the land. |
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| "Mammal-like Reptiles" rose from lizard-like (Ophiacadon), to sail-back (Dimetrodon) to the warm-blooded and dog-like Cynognathus. To survive, they downsized and adapted to nocturnal activity |
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| the first full mammals which came in the begining of the Jurassic; the size of squirrels |
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| Triassic Proto-Mammals; they were the missing link between reptiles and mammals. they suckled from special milk glands on their mother's stomachs |
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