Stegosaurus Facts
The Stegosaurus meaning ‘roof lizard’ was named by US paleontologist Othniel Marsh in the year 1877. These dinosaurs were huge in size and measured 26-30 feet long, stood 9 feet tall and weighed around 6,800 pounds. They lived around 150 million years ago in the Jurassic era. These dinosaurs were quadrupeds with front limbs shorter than the hind limbs, which gave them an arched appearance. |
They had 17 bony plates embedded on the back. These plates ran along the Stegosaurus spine and tail in two broad rows. The plates were alternatively aligned and the largest plate would be as much as 2.5 ft tall. They also had spikes at the end of their tails called thagomizers. These spikes were a weapon of defense while the plates acted like radiators that helped the stegosaurus dissipate body heat. An amazing feature of the stegosaurus was they had a very small head with a brain, the size of a walnut and a toothless beak.
The stegosaurus was herbivorous by nature and fed on ferns, smaller club mosses, cycads, horsetails, and bushy conifers.
The first stegosaurus fossil was found by M.P Felch in Colorado, USA in the year 1879. The stegosaurus is believed to have lived in the states of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming in the US.
No facts remain to study the predators of these huge herbivorous animals. However, it is believed that they might have been attacked by the other large carnivores like Allosaurus, Ceratosaurus, Marshosaurus, Torvosaurus, and maybe even packs of smaller meat-eaters like Ornitholestes.
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