Kentrosaurus
Kentrosaurus aethiopicus
Pronounced:
KEN-troh-Saw-rus
Diet:
Herbivore (plant
eater)
Name Means:
Spiky Lizard
Length:
10-16 feet (3.5
- 5 meters)
Height:
Weight:
1 ton (900
kilos)
Time:
Late Jurassic
-85 MYA
Fossil
remains for
this
Dinosaur
have been
found in
Tanzania
Kentrosaurus was a
small member of the
stegosaur family.
It had 9 pairs of
plates on its neck,
shoulders, and back,
and 5 pairs of long,
sharp spikes above
its hips and along
its tail.
Kentrosaurus also
had a long spike on
each of its hips
(some
paleontologists
think that it also
had these spikes on
its shoulders).
Two composite
skeletons of
Kentrosaurus were
assembled from
hundreds of bones
quarried by German
paleontologists
between 1909 and
1912 in Tanzania. It
was named by Edwin
Henning in 1915.
The Tanzanian quarry
geology indicated
Kentrosaurus lived
near a large river.
It is therefore
thought that it fed
on lush, low growing
vegetation along the
riverbank. So many
Kentrosaurus bones
were found in this
quarry that
scientists believe
that at least 70
must have perished
at the site. This
also suggests that
Kentrosaurus lived
in herds.
Kentrosaurus was
found in the same
quarry as the famous
Berlin
Brachiosaurus
Unfortunately one of
the two existing
Kentrosaurus
skeletons was
destroyed by an
Allied bombing raid
on Berlin during
World War II. |
