Massospondylus
Massospondylus carinatus
Pronounced:
Mass-o-spon-Die-luss
Diet:
Herbivore
(Plant-Eater)
Name
Means:
"Bulky
Vertebra"
Length:
13
feet
(4
m)
Height:
5
feet
(1.6
m)
Weight:
500
pounds
(230
kilos)
Time:
Early
Jurassic
-
195
MYA
Fossil remains for this Dinosaur have been
found in Africa, North America
Massospondylus was an early member of the huge plant eating, sauropod (long-neck) dinosaur family. It was sort of a smaller version of the better known Plateosaurus , and it had back legs that were much longer than its front legs and probably could have stood on two legs quite easily.
Massospondylus
is an
interesting
dinosaur
for a
number
of
reasons.
It
illustrates
how, in
the
early
stages
of
dinosaur
evolution,
there
were
only a
few
genera
spread
throughout
the
Earth's
single
land
mass -
Pangaea.
It is
easy to
see,
when
looking
at a
skeletal
reconstruction
of this
creature,
how it
evolved
from
smaller,
bipedal
dinosaurs.
And its
neck and
tail
foretell
the
characteristics
of its
giant
descendants.
One
of the
most
interesting
discoveries
related
to
Massospondylus
was a
nest
find in
Southern
Africa.
The eggs
in the
nest
contained
the
remains
of fetal
dinosaurs,
the
earliest
ever
discovered.
Additionally,
the eggs
themselves
seem to
indicate
that the
shells
were not
hard
like
later
dinosaur
eggs,
but soft
and
leathery
like
modern
reptile
eggs.
This
would
indicate
the
possibility
that
earlier
dinosaurs,
not so
far
removed
from
early
reptiles,
laid
soft
eggs.
The
Massospondylus
type
specimen
remains
were
destroyed
during a
Nazi
bombing
raid on
England
in WWII.
The
original
specimen
was
named in
1854 by
Sir
Richard
Owen. |
