Jurassic Park in New Jersey?

That's right. This Memorial Day weekend, a new dinosaur exhibit opens in Secaucus, NJ. It's located deep in the wilds of the Meadowlands.

There's 31 animatronic dinosaurs. Some have more movement than others, but all look pretty spectacular and kids will love it!

Here's a link that tells all about it: http://fieldstationdinosaurs.com/news/browse/page-0 Be sure to click on all the Read More buttons to get lots of interesting information.

Future Updates to the Dinosaurology Blog

Most of the posts that I've done so far were written while back when I had plans for a web site for the information. I decided to make it a blog figuring it would be easier to continually add information. So, once I came up with a name for the blog I uploaded all that I had written up to that time.

In the future, I'd like to do a few things: Continue writing general information about dinosaurs that I think is interesting (and hopefully interesting to others). Possibly get into more depth with the dinosaur/bird connection, extinction theories, and other topics that seem to get updated and change from time to time. And, try to keep up with the latest dinosaur related news.

Another topic I will cover is dinosaurs in movies. Seeing King Kong (1933) for the first time back in the 70s cemented my love of all things prehistoric. This eventually led to watching Japanese kaiju films as well, even though they weren't "real" prehistoric animals. But, they were cool!

So, hopefully, with trying to make a living and starting our animal welfare organization (Crossroads Companion Animal Partnership) I will have time to post often enough to keep the blog afloat.

What is NOT a dinosaur? (In The Sea)

During the Mesozoic era, the seas were teaming with life. As creatures of all shapes and sizes were filling the skies, the sea was home to a myriad of aquatic wonders. Some are relatives of some of todays marine life, like sharks and whales. Others were unique animals who's lineage died along with the many of the dinosaurs. We will be strictly speaking of vertebrates, but be assured, there were many invertebrates inhabiting the seas as well. Some were food for the animals we will be discussing! Since the focus of the site is dinosaurs, I'm not going to get into too much detail about every group of marine reptiles.

The Triassic period gave rise to many different types of marine reptiles. Placodonts are described as having the appearance of a walrus-turtle combo. Very strange, to say the least. There favorite food was mollusks (clams, snails, mussels). They were between 3-6 feet in length, had clawed hands and feet, came in an armored and unarmored variety, and fed primarily at the sea bottom.

Nothosaurs looked a little more like your classic "sea monster". They had a somewhat long neck, four clawed appendages that were most likely webbed to make it easier to propel the animal through water. They grew to about 10 feet in length and their diet consisted mainly of fish. Some people have suggested that they may have had a seal-like lifestyle, waddling themselves onto land occasionally, but spending most of their time in the water.

Nothosaurs and Pacodonts nver made it past the Triassic. But another group, ichthyosaurs, made it all the way through to the mid Cretaceous. Ichthyosaurs sort of resembled dolphins, but with longer snouts (among other differences). They had four "flippers" made up of many tiny bones. They came in many sizes. The largest almost 50 feet long! They had two main body types. Lizard shaped and fish shaped. Fish-shaped version resemble dolphins and the lizard-shaped ones looked like sharks. Many ate fish, but it seems squidlike creatures were a favorite.

Plesiosaurs are some of the most recognized sea creatures of the mesozoic. They are the classic "Loch Ness Monster"-looking creature. They arrived in the late Triassic Period and lasted on through the late Cretaceous. Their typical description is long neck, wide body, short tail, and four flippers. They came in two types: long neck, small head (plesiosaurs), short neck, large head (pliosaurs). An example of a pliosaur would be lipleurodon, which was seen in the television show, Walking with Dinosaurs. Their size ranged from 6 feet to 65 feet. They seemed to eat anything and everything, depending on where they lived and on individual species preferences.

During the Cretaceous, plesiosaurs had competition from some other large marine reptiles called mosasaurs. They are thought to be related to the Komodo dragon or perhaps even snakes. Their bodies were similar in shape to a large lizard as was the head filled with many sharp teeth. Their bodies were very long ending with a long, flat tail. They also had four flippers, the front ones sometimes slightly larger than the rear ones.Their size ranged from 3 feet in length to around 60 feet.

These are by no means all the marine life that was abundant during the Mesozoic Era. These are just some examples of some of the more famous and recognizable creatures that inhabited the seas. Perhaps, in the future I will delve more deeply into Mesozoic sea life, but for now these should give you some idea of what kinds animals inhabited the sea at the same time as the dinosaurs ruled the land.

What is NOT a dinosaur? (In The Air)

Dinosaurs were not the only animals around during the Mesozoic, but may people think so. Of course, there were also insects, lizards, amphibians, and later, birds. Dinosaurs are technically classified as terrestrial (living on land) animals. If they flew or swam, they aren't considered dinosaurs. Here we will look at some of the other types of prehistoric, and now extinct, animals living during the reign of the dinosaurs.

Let's start in the air. One group of animals that you see in lots of dinosaur drawings, paintings, and movies, is pterosaurs, which means "winged lizard". These were the great flying reptiles. Firstly, lets get the pronunciation out of the way. It's pronounced "ter-ro-sore". The "P" is silent. My guess, is that it was put there so 1st graders would learn how to pronounce it correctly, while their parents struggled with it, therefore, making the 1st grader somewhat superior to their parent, at least in one aspect of life.

Pterosaurs came into being towards the end of the Triassic period and flourished on through to the end of the Cretaceous. As it seems with most animals, they started out quite small and grew to huge B-52 size majestic flyers.

Pterosaurs formed two main groups: ones with long tails and ones with short tails. The long tailed pterosaurs evolved first. The long-tailed rhamphorhynchoids lasted from the late Triassic period until the late Jurassic. Then the short-tailed pterodactyl took over into the late Cretaceous. The most notable differences between the two groups are in appearance. The rhamphorhynchoids were quite small, had shorter necks and heads and a mouth full of teeth, some having quite bizarre dental work! Pterodactyls were all toothless, had short necks and sported elaborate head crests that might have been brightly colored in life.These groups are considered somewhat "informal" in the paleontological world and many scientists break the pterosaurs into more specific categories.

So, how did these buggers get around? Well, they flew, of course? And glided...and walked. At first, most scientists assumed they were purely gliders. They would need tall trees or cliffs to start from, then glide down on warm air currents. While this may be true, especially for pterosaurs that lived near the sea, they could also fly. Probably not as well as birds or bats, but they could do it. They had adaptations like hollow bones and powerful muscles built around a breast bone important for the stamina needed for flight.

Pterosaur remains have mostly been found in marine deposits, meaning these particular species were living in a marine environment. Perhaps soaring over seas or lakes to eat fish as some modern birds of pray do today. Just because their remains have not been found in many different environments, does not mean they did not live elsewhere. Between the physical structure of these animals and the fossil preserving aspects of other area such as deserts or forests, dead pterosaurs, perhaps, just didn't fossilize in those areas. It usually takes a pretty specific set of circumstances to preserve an animal in a fossilized state.

So, while dinosaurs roamed the land, these guys were flying overhead and probably, in some instances, battling carnivores for carcasses. Also, at the same time, there was another group of "non dinosaurs" thriving, but they were in the sea. Lets take a look at the life and times of marine reptiles next.

Next-Marine Reptiles.

Modern Dinosaur Artists

All of today's dinosaur artists have been influenced one way or another by the artists mentioned on the previous page. Also, movies, books, new theories all shape how an artist depicts how a prehistoric animal will look. Since there are no real "rules", artists have to mix science, modern animals and imagination to reconstruct animals that no human has ever seen.

Scientific knowledge  is changing all the time. New specimens are discovered and theories are updated, changed, or altogether discarded predicated on what information can be gleaned from these new finds. That's why looking back on some old images of prehistoric life looks odd to us today. The information these early artists had to rely on has changed considerably over the decades.

Artists of today still work with the same materials as their predecessors, pencil, acrylics, oils, clay. And, they are also creating their work on computers. To there are applications that make it possible for artists to replicate real-world materials in the computer. Also, they are not limited to a 2D canvas or even a static image. Today, 3D and animation has brought many of their creations even closer to life.

Here is a list of some of my favorites and by no means is this a complete list. I will try to add to this list as often as I can. If anyone has any suggestions or are an artist themselves and would like to be added, by all means let me know. This list is in no particular order.

Walters and Kissinger
http://www.dinoart.com/index.html

Luis V. Rey
http://www.luisrey.ndtilda.co.uk/

Douglas Henderson
http://gallery.in-tch.com/~earthhistory/index.html

Mark Hallett
http://www.hallettpaleoart.com/

James Gurney (also lots of general art technique information)
http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/

John Sibbick
http://www.johnsibbick.com/

Josef Moravec
http://www.prehistory.com/

Joe Tucciarone
http://members.aol.com/Dinoplanet/dinosaur.html

Charlie McGrady
http://www.cmstudio.com/

David Krentz
http://www.krentzpresentz.com/

Michael Trcic
http://www.trcicstudio.com/

Julius T. Csotonyi
http://www.csotonyi.com/

Michael Skrepnick
http://www.dinosaursinart.com/index.htm

Dinosaur Artists

There were many artists in the past who specialized in animals, wildlife or even specifically, prehistoric life. The names we most often hear associated with prehistoric art are Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, Charles R. Night, Zdeněk Burian, and Rudolph Zallinger.

In England, in 1852, Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins was asked to create life-size sculptures of prehistoric animals to be put on display in the Crystal Palace Park. With the help of some of the leading scientists of the time, spent three years creating the concrete sculptures.

Later he was asked to created a similar display for Central Park in New York, but the project was cancelled midway. They say the models that he had created up to that point are buried on the grounds where the American Museum of Natural History and Central Park are today. After this, he went on to do dinosaur reconstructions in several American museums before returning to England in 1878. (Wikipedia)

One of the most famous and influential dinosaur artists was Charles R. Night. He has been the hero artists as divers as stop motion animators Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen to modern day dinosaur artists and sculptors. As a kid growing up in the 60s and 70s, almost every dinosaur book I marveled at seemed to have some Knight paintings in them. His famous painting from 1896 of what was then called Laelaps (now called Dryptosaurus) was much ahead of its time. It showed one animal leaping onto the other. Whether in play or in battle, it showed that dinosaurs didn't have to be depicted as slow moving hulking beasts. These were as lively as large predatory cats of today.

This and other paintings of prehistoric animals, mammals as well as dinosaurs, led to his being asked to paint a huge mural for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. He also painted a series of murals for the Chicago Field Museum. Here he produced what was probably his most famous painting depicting a Tyrannosaurus rex confronting a Triceratops. This painting forever cemented in the publics mind, a battle that of two titans that was depicted by many artist and in many variations for years to come. These works led to other mural work in the Carnegie Museum, the Smithsonian Institute and the Peabody Museum of Natural History. (Wikipedia)

One artist who was particularly influenced by Knight was Zdeněk Burian. His early works were very similar in style to Knights but his own style became more detailed in his "account" of a particular scene. He spent much time making the landscapes and surroundings in his paintings as the main subject. They have a feel as if they were painted from nature. Not so stylized or posed as as if they were a snapshot of nature. Being of Czech decent, many of his original paintings now hang in the Natural History Museum in Prague. (Wikipedia)

Rudolph Zallinger seemed to take the realism aspect of dinosaur paintings one step further. His Age of Reptiles mural for the Peabody Museum of Natural History was extremely detailed and life-like. (More information about it's construction can be found here: http://www.peabody.yale.edu/explore/makingmural.html) It was featured in Life magazine in the early 50s and has been sited by more than one paleo artist and paleontologist as the catalyst for getting them interested in dinosaurs.

Modern Dinosaur Artists

Dinosaur Art and Artists

Without drawings, paintings, and models of dinosaurs, we would never really get an idea of what they looked like. Fossil bones give us an idea of what parts are what (arms, legs, head, tail) and how big a certain animal was. Footprints tell us about their locomotion, how they walked, or ran. Skin impressions even tell us what they were covered with and, with recent discoveries, how the coloring might have been patterned. But, to put all these things together takes more than a scientist, it also takes an artist.

People have been depicting animals since man was first able to scrawl some charcoal on a cave wall. Of course, then, the animals were walking around in front of early man and was able to "work from life", so to speak. Today, to show what an animal looks like that has been extinct for millions of years takes a little imagination. An artist must study the past as well as the present.

To create something from a starting point of bones and impressions can be difficult. Two artists viewing the same material can come up with completely different ideas of what the same animal would look like. There aren't any rules to reconstructing a dinosaur and sometimes an artist's imagination can run wild and come up with some very strange interpretations.

A good place for the artist to start is using comparative anatomy. This is where a particular part of an organism's anatomy is compared to a similar part in a different organism. This process is easy in the case of comparing the anatomy of a living tiger to that of an extinct Smilodon (saber-toothed cat). Since they are already very similar, you can reconstruct a Smilodon with a great degree of accuracy by looking at modern tigers. Although, in actuality, tigers and Smilodons are from different evolutionary families, they are close enough in anatomical structure to use one to recreate the other in basic appearance.

Dinosaurs closest living relatives are crocodiles and birds. So, an artist might look at how a bird's leg, foot, and claws are structurally and also look at how the skin is and perhaps use that to recreate the foot of a theropod such as Tyrannosaurus rex. Obviously, much more muscle and size would have to be added, but the basic underlying structure is there to start with.

Another aspect to consider is what kind of lifestyle did a particular animal have. Were they a carnivore or a herbivore? Establishing that to start with will send the artist in a particular direction and help in making certain choices. What would a predator need in order to catch it's food? What would a herbivore need in order to not BE food?

The environment of a particular animal will also help in establishing traits such as color. Predators will need to blend in to their environment as to be effective hunters. Color is also used to attract mates. Other aspects such as horns, feathers, or anything that might single out a specific animal can also be considered. Males might be more ornate to attract females. This is very common among birds.

Once all the scientific data is applied the artist can then use their imagination to add their own personal take on what the animal looked like. Flipping through the pages of several different dinosaur books will show vastly different renditions of the same animal. Type in a dinosaur name in you favorite search engine and you will see dozens of different variations of the same animal. This is where the view can form their own opinion as to which one they think best represents that animal in their mind.

Artists

Dinosaur Museums and Exhibits

Almost every major city and some smaller out-of-the-way towns have natural history museums. Some have traveling exhibits, which are only there for a limited time. The permanent exhibits are usually about the science or environment of the area they reside in. One thing they all have in common is that they almost all have some kind of fossil display and, if possible, a dinosaur exhibit.

The dinosaur specimens may be just a tooth or claw, or they may be 2 or more full skeletons posed in full combat for survival. Some have animitronics (mechanized models that are as close to the real thing as possible). These can give you a better idea of what these animals looked like than just seeing the mounted bones.

Most museums also have paintings, sculptures, and interactive exhibits to show you all aspects of the dinosaurs themselves but also how they lived and the environment they lived in.

Here is a list (not a complete list by any means) of various museums that have dinosaur displays of some kind as part of there exhibits. I will try as best I can to add to the list frequently to include many smaller museums throughout the U.S. as well as those in other countries. The list is in no particular order. And for now, it only covers North America.

New York, New York
http://www.amnh.org/

The mother of all dinosaur displays. The American Museum of Natural History is where most kids on the east coast first got interested in dinosaurs. I still try to get there when I can.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
http://www.carnegiemnh.org/

The Carnegie Museum, along with the American Museum of Natural History, hold some of the first discovered dinosaurs.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
http://www.ansp.org/

At the Academy of Natural Sciences, along with hadrosaurs, chasmosaurs and the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex, you'll see Giganotosaurus. One of the largest carnivores to ever walk the earth. At over 40 feet in length, it was slightly longer than T. rex.

Los Angles, California
http://www.nhm.org/
The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles has Thomas the T. rex Lab. This is where visitors can watch curators working on the delicate removal of a dinosaur skeleton.

Drumheller, Alberta, Canada
http://www.tyrrellmuseum.com/

The Royal Tyrrell Museum is another "biggie" in the dinosaur world. Many skeletons seen around the world have come from quarries excavated by the museum.

Blanding, Utah
http://www.dinosaur-museum.org/
The Dinosaur Museum

Salt Lake City, Utah
http://www.umnh.utah.edu/
Utah Museum of Natural History

Bozeman, Montana
http://www.museumoftherockies.org/

The Museum of the Rockies is the home of famed paleontologist Jack Horner.

Denver, Colorado
http://www.dmns.org/main/en/

The Denver Museum of Nature and Science is home to paleontologist Dr. Kenneth Carpenter.

Houston, Texas
http://www.hmns.org/?r=1

The Houston Museum of Natural Science is home to the "heretically" famous Dr. Robert T. Bakker. Who hails from the "great state of New Jersey!" (woo hoo)

Thermopolis, Wyoming
http://server1.wyodino.org/home/

The Wyoming Dinosaur Center and Dig Sites is home to Scott Hartman who has done some excellent skeletal reconstructions at his site, http://www.skeletaldrawing.com/

Chicago, Illinois
http://www.fieldmuseum.org/

The Field Museum is the home of the most famous Tyrannosaurus rex in the world, Sue. "She" was purchased by the museum for $8.4 million.

Washington, D.C.
http://www.si.edu/

The Smithsonian. This will get you right to the dinosaurs: http://paleobiology.si.edu/dinosaurs/

Rocky Hill, Connecticut
http://www.dinosaurstatepark.org/

Dinosaur State park have trackways attributed to Eubrontes, which is a dinosaur know only from the tracks.

Woodland Park, Colorado
http://www.rmdrc.com/
Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Recourse Center

Cañon City, Colorado
http://www.dinosaurdepot.com/

Dinosaur Depot Museum. They say they have the world's most complete Stegosaurus.

Dinosaur, Colorado (really)
http://www.nps.gov/history/museum/exhibits/dino/

Dinosaur National Monument is a unique burial site that has dozens of specimens of various animals. The most abundant is Allosaurus. Specimens of all ages have been found of this creature at the site.

Rockford, Illinois
http://www.burpee.org/

Burpee Museum of Natural History is well known for housing Jane, the juvenile T. rex that was discovered in Montana.

Dickinson, North Dakota
http://www.dakotadino.com/
Dakota Dinosaur Museum

Fruita, Colorado
http://www.dinosaurjourney.org/
Dinosaur Journey Museum

Albuquerque, New Mexico
http://www.nmnaturalhistory.org/

New Mexico Museum of Natural History has several dinosaur exhibits, one of them a cast of Stan, the second largest T. rex found (Sue, being the largest).

New Haven, Connecticut (Yale University)
http://www.peabody.yale.edu/

Peabody Museum of Natural History home of the famous murals painted by Rudolph Zallinger, the Age of Reptiles and the Age of Mammals. And of course, it's founder Othniel Charles Marsh, was a tad popular as well.

What did the planet look like during the time of the dinosaurs?

The way the continents are positioned today is quite a bit different to the way they were during the time of the dinosaurs. In fact, the continents changed a few times during the Mesozoic. They even had different names than they do today. Places like North America or Africa didn't exist as they do today. The continents were once all together as one and slowly moved into the positions they are in today.

In the beginning of the Mesozoic, during the Triassic Period, this one large continent was called Pangea. This land mass was formed by the end of the Permian period, just before the age of dinosaurs. The end of the Permian marked one of the planets great extinctions. Throughout the life of our planet there have been five great extinctions. The latest being at the end of the Cretaecous period marking the end of the dinosaurs. In each of these extinctions, well over 50% of all life on the planet becomes extinct. And after each mass extinction, our planet has had to start over with mostly new life forms.

So, at the beginning of the Triassic, we start life over again. The animals and plants that were abundant during the Permian give way to new life forms in the Triassic. One of these forms that is important to our discussions is the appearance of the first dinosaurs.

To the east of Pangea is the Tethys sea. The climate at this time was mostly warm with some of the inner parts of the continent being arid. During this period a group of animals called archosaurs was beginning. The name means ruling reptiles. It included birds, crocodiles, and dinosaurs as well a pterosaurs (flying reptiles, non dinosaurian) and large marine animals (also not dinosaurs). Plant life consisted of cycads, ferns and conifers. By the end of the Triassic, Pangea began to break up into two separate land masses: Laurasia to the north and Gondwana to the south.

This brings us to the next period in the Mesozoic Era, the Jurassic. This is where dinosaurs really begin to flourish. By the end of this period, dinosaurs will have evolved into some of the largest animals to ever walk the earth. The single continent has now split into Laurasia and Gondwana. The seas have spread and se levels have risen. Plant life was similar to that of the Triassic, only more abundant and more varied and some becoming quite large and wide spread like conifers. In the seas, clams, sponges, corals, crustaceans were flourishing. As well as large marine animals such as ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and pliosaurs. In the air, pterosaurs like pterodactyls filled the skies. On land, huge herbivores had evolved such as sauropods like brachiosaurs, apatosaurs, and camarasaurs. As well as stegosaurs, iguanodons, and carnivores like allosaurs were very common.

By the Cretaceous period, the land masses looked very much as they do today. Temperatures on land and in the seas began to rise. The biggest advancement in plant life was the beginnings of flowering plants. Probably evolved to prevent being devoured by the ever increasing herbivore populations. Dinosaurs produced some more well known examples such as Tyrannosaurus rex, Triceratops, and Ankylosaurus. The latter two developed some very serious armor and defense mechanisms. Pterosaurs also brought out the big guns by producing some, like quetzalcoatlus, which had a wingspan of over 40 feet.

That gives us a general overview of the Mesozoic Era, the time of the dinosaurs. There are places today that still resemble the climate and landscape of this time, but there are no dinosaurs around any longer. Only their relatives: crocodiles and birds.

When did the dinosaurs live?

Most people know that dinosaurs lived a long time ago but they're usually not sure when exactly. Well, dinosaurs live during a time called the Mesozoic Era. Mesozoic means "middle life". Given the name because is lies between the Paleozoic ("ancient life") and Cenozoic ("new life") Eras. These eras lie in the Phanerozoic Eon. This period of time makes up part of what is know as the Geologic Time Scale.  Before the Phanerozoic Eon was the Precambrian Eon. The Precambrian Era starts at the earth's creation and goes to a time where hard-shelled animals were first forming.

Since we are concerning ourselves with dinosaurs, we will concentrate mainly with the Mesozoic. The Mesozoic was further broken down into three periods. These were, from oldest to youngest, the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous. The Triassic and Jurassic were further broken down into Early, Middle and Late Epochs. The Cretaceous was broken down into Early and Late Epochs. These were all broken down even further by their unique rock formations. These were categorized as  Upper, Middle, and Lower.

The Mesozoic lasted approximately 180 million years. The Triassic from 248-213 million years ago (mya). The Jurassic from 213-144 mya. The Cretaceous from 144-65 mya. So, add that all up and you can see that dinosaurs had survived for around 180 million years. To get an idea of how long that is, Homo sapiens (modern man) has been around for around 200,000 years. Recorded history, around 10,000. These estimate tend to change with each new discovery, and they depend on different criteria for "modern man".

So, you can see that dinosaurs may be gone, but they were around a lot longer than we have been so far. That's why I wonder why so many people say dinosaurs were failures and anything old or antiquated is always called a "dinosaur". They were a very successful group who's course had run out. Some scientist say they were declining towards the end of the Cretaceous and without the help of a possible catastrophic meteor or volcanic activity, they would have died shortly after the Cretaceous, anyway.

Some say dinosaurs are still around today in the form of birds. A once controversial topic, it is becoming more widely accepted all the time. We will get into the dinosaur-bird theory as well as what might have ended their long reign in other topics.

Dinosaur Family Tree-Saurischians Part 3

Now we turn to the gentler side of saurischians, the sauropods. Actually, the sauropodomorphs, technically. This group is further broken down into prosauropods and sauropods. Sauropodomorphs would lie at the same level as theropods.

Prosauropods, originally thought to be precursors to sauropods, are now considered to be a group on their own. This is what I mean when I say that these classifications change constantly. Even the one we are creating here is subject to change and may not exactly match another one you may find in a book or on the Internet.

Prosauropods were animals with long necks and tails, most were bipedal and quadrupedal and were characterized by having a large thumb claw on each hand. There arms were considerably shorter than their legs which made this varied way of walking possible. A common dinosaur of this group is Plateosaurus. I always thought Dino from the Flintstones was a Plateosaurus, but that has yet to be proven!

The sauropod group was made up of some of the largest, longest, and heaviest animals ever to walk the face of the earth. Their appearance is that of what most people think a dinosaur looks like. Apatosaurus (formerly brontosaurus) was a sauropod. They had very long heads and tails, walked on all fours and had huge, heavy bodies held up by large columnar legs. They had very small heads, though, and it is a wonder how they were able to get enough food through their small mouths to feed their sometimes enormous bodies.

Some sauropods. like Amargasaurus, had huge neck and back spines. And Another subgroup called titanosaurs (for good reason) included the biggest of the big. Argentinosaurus is considered to be the best candidate for the overall largest dinosaur ever. It is estimated to be about 115 feet long and weigh 80-100 tons. Sauroposeidon is considered the tallest holding its head over 55 feet off the ground. Sauroposeidon is part of the subgroup brachiosaur which had a more giraffe-like appearance having longer forelimbs than hind limbs and having a very pronounced slope from shoulders to tail.

Well, that wraps up a very basic look at the dinosaur clade, or family tree. I say basic because there are many, many subgroups and branches within the the major groups I've mentioned here, and these existing groups are constantly being rearranged. But, this should give you a basic idea of how all dinosaurs are grouped together and distinguished from one another.

Dinosaur Family Tree-Saurischians Part 2

Abelisaurs are a branch that includes such dinosaurs as ceratosaurs (which are also put into their own broups sometimes) and carnotaurus. They had short, four-fingered hands with various boney head ornaments on the skull. Carnotaurus having extremely stunted arms and two horns over each of its eyes. Ceratosaurus is recognizable from it's large blade-like horn over its nose. This group were quite large growing between 20 and 30 feet in length.

The next branch we see is the tyrannosaur branch made famous by, you guessed it, Tyrannosaurus rex. For years, considered one of, if not the biggest flesh-eating dinosaur to have ever walked the earth. Despite its impossibly small arms (about the size of an average man's, but much stronger), it was most likely a menace during its time on the planet with its huge head and large teeth (each about the size of a large banana).

Dromaeosaurs, our next branch, has another famous famous representative, velociraptor. The book and film Jurassic Park made the velociraptor a household name. Although depicted much larger in the film, they were actually about 6-7 feet long and about 3 feet high at the hips. Dromaeosaurs were mostly known for the dangerous second toe claw on its hind feet. The claw was curved and much larger than the others. It is widely though to be used in gutting its victims.

Spinosaurs were another large group of bipedal meat-eaters. Their main characteristics were a crocodile-type head and some having elongated back spines, in the case of Spinosaurus. Spinosaurus is sometimes considered to be the largest meat-eater ever. Some estimates put it at over 50 feet in length. The main diet is believed to be fish from due to the shape of the head, teeth, and jaw structure. Although, at 50 feet long, Spinosaurus could probably eat whatever it wanted!

Troodontids, considered to be the most intelligent of all dinosaurs, were mostly about half the size as a man and had huge eyes that faced forward to form binocular vision. Represented by Troodon, they also had large, long-fingered hands with partially opposable thumbs. This meant, like humans, it could easily grip and hold on to things. It aslo had the "sickle  claw" that dromaeosaurs had.

Now we begin to see some odd shapes starting to evolve. Ornithomimosaurs were called the bird mimic dinosaurs. Most had the appearance of a plucked ostrich. They came in various sizes abut all had the same basic shape. Some members of this group are Ornithomimus, Struthiomimus, and Garudimimus.

Therizinosaurs were like a nightmarish practical joke. They were some of the oddest looking dinosaurs ever. They had long necks, huge, oversized claws on their hands, pot bellies, and some, like Therizinosaurus, grew to a length of almost 40 feet. What made them even more strange was the fact that they were most likely plant eaters.

Continuing on with the strangeness, oviraptors were another odd looking group. They were very bird-like in they appearance. They had crests on their heads of various sizes. Many scientists believe theses crests might have been brightly colored. Oviraptor, this groups representative, was discovered with a number of eggs. Believing the animal was stealing and eating the eggs from another dinosaur and got its name which means egg thief. Later on, it was discovered that it was actually oviraptor's eggs and the dinosaur was protecting them. So, in actuality, the name is all wrong for this dinosaur and its group.

The next group in our theropod tree is alvarezsaurs. They were about 6 feet long most of which was taken up by it's tail and some of the most bird like of all the dinosaurs. Right around here, things start to get pretty complicated with trying to place a lot of the bird-like dinosaurs. In fact, to many scientists, the final branch for theropods ends with Aves, or birds.

When many people ask about dinosaur extinction, many scientists say birds are dinosaurs so they have never really gone extinct.

Next-Dinosaur Family Tree-Saurischians Part 3.

Dinosaur Family Tree-Saurischians

OK. The saurischian branch is a little more complicated. There are two main branches: theropods and sauropods. Theropods are mainly bipedal meat eaters, or omnivores (eat anything!). One member of this group is the famous Tyrannosaurus rex. Sauropods are mainly made up of quadrupedal plant eaters. A famous member of this group is apatosaurus (formerly brontosaurus). So, you have a head start this time on what some of these guys look like. T. rex (as it's sometimes called) made a well-known appearance in all three Jurassic Park movies, as did another theropod, spinosaurus. A relative of the apatosaurus (brachiosaurus) appeared in several Jurassic Park films, as well.

As we did last time with the ornithischians, we will take one group at a time. First, the theropods. When drawn a certain way, the theropod branch can look a little like a menorah. There's a main stem in the middle then the branching starts to go off in opposite directions from the middle.

Before branching out into the more complete areas, there a some early, small theropods that seem to continuously get shuffled around. Some of these are eoraptor, ceolophysis, herrerasaurus, and compsognathus. These were some of the precursors to all the rest of the theropods.

The first main branch coming of of theropods is allosaurs. Allosaurus is the main representative from this group. They are characterized by being quite large (some reaching close to 45 feet in length). They had large, but narrow heads usually with some type of bony head ornamentation. Small to medium size arms ending in three clawed hands. The legs were large and powerful ending in long three-toed feet. Their basic stance was somewhat like a large bird. Their backs were almost parallel to the ground with head held up by a thick powerful, yet flexible neck.

The rest of the groups kind of branch off fast and furiously, so we will give brief descriptions and name one dinosaur that represents each group. Most theropods in general have the same basic shape. Allosaurs seem to typify the group and consequently, many unknown theropods tend to get thrown in that group. At least until scientists find a home for them on the correct branch.


Next-Dinosaur Family Tree-Saurischians Part 2.

Dinosaur Family Tree-Ornithiscians

When we construct our dinosaur family tree, we are going to stick to most of the major branches.  Most of the branches can be subdivided even further or branched out into yet more directions, but we're going to keep this simple for now.

OK. Lets start with the ornithischian branch. Now if you remember from our topic on What is a dinosaur? all dinosaurs that belong to the ornithischian group are plant-eaters. Some of these dinosaurs are quadrupedal (walk on all fours, like our dog or cat), some bipedal (walk on two hind legs), and some switch from four-legged to two-legged depending on the situation.

Some of the branches have a representative dinosaur for that branch. The branch itself is usually named after that particular dinosaur. There are several reasons for this. The dinosaur may be the first discovered for that particular branch. It may be the oldest representative of that branch. Or, it may be the only member of that branch, but it is significantly different enough to not fit into any other category.

So, we said we're starting with ornithischia. From there, the first level branches are, thyreophorans, ornithopods, and marginocephalians. Wow, are they a mouthful or what? Well, scientists like to use big words. Thyreophorans is the main group that contains all the armored dinosaurs. These were dinosaurs like scelidosaurus, ankylosaurus and stegosaurus. You've probably seen a picture of an Ankylosaurus. They look like little tanks with four legs. They had bony protuberances over their entire bodies, even their eyelids! Stegosaurus is the dinosaur with huge plates running down it's back with a spiked tail. Stegosaurs were the animals walking through the stream in The Lost World: Jurassic Park 2. Scelidosaurus is not so well-known. They were the precursors to stegosaurs and ankylosaurs.

The next branches to come from ornithischia are ornithopods and marginocephalians. Yikes! The words are getting bigger. Not to fear. We'll take them one at a time.

Ornithopods further break down into hypsilophodontids, iguanodontids, and hadrosaurs. Hypsilophodontids are represented by, none other than: Hypsilophodon. big surprise, eh? They were small (7.5 feet long), bipedal, plant-eater with large eyes and a beak. Iguanodontids are represented by Iguanodon. See how easy this is? They were one of the first dinosaurs discovered. They were quite large (20-30 feet long). They walked on two feet or four, whichever was required. And they had a spike where their thumb would be. Hadrosaurs are commonly called "duck-billed" dinosaurs. They are broken down into crested and non-crested types. Hadrosaurus, the first dinosaur to be discovered in North America (in New Jersey, in fact...woo hoo) is a member of the hadrosaur group. They are the non-crested group. A parasaurolophus, with it's long bony head gear is a member of the crested group (separated out as lambeosaurines)

The last group branching out from ornithopods that we are going to talk about are the marginocephalians. These were the group sporting the fanciest headgear around. This group is further broken down into pachycephalosaurs and ceratopsians. Pachycephalosaurs are affectionately called boneheads.They had a thick bony skull which scientists are still debating on what it was used for. That group is represented by Pachycephalosaurus. Ceratopsians were the horned dinosaurs. They came in various sizes (some up to 30 feet in length) and all had an array of frills, horns, and bony protrusions on their skulls. Triceratops, from this group, is quite well known with it's large frill and three horns on it's skull.

That was a basic description of some of the major groups in the ornithischian branch. There are many more subgroups and off shoots that are changing all the time. Some are being added, some are being combined, and yet others are being eliminated.

So, now lets take a look at the saurischian group and its many branches.


Next-Dinosaur Family Tree-Saurischians.

What kinds of dinosaurs are there?

To answer that question, we will need a starting point. In another topic (What is a dinosaur?), we discussed how dinosaurs were broken up into "bird-hipped" and "lizard-hipped. They can also be broken up into meat-eaters and plant-eaters. Or, we can simply go by their size and divide them into large and small. The best way is probably to go back and start with the "bird-hipped" (ornithischian) and "lizard-hipped" (saurischian) divisions. It will make things much easier and neater as we go along.

When discussing the various types of dinosaurs, what you are doing is basically making a family tree for dinosaurs. When scientists first started classifying animals, the taxonomic method (discussed in How do you classify a dinosaur?) was the main way of differentiating organisms. Today, many scientists subscribe to the idea of cladistics. Caldistics is the science of tracing the evolutionary path of an organism through common ancestry. Meaning, if you go back in time far enough, there is one organism that (in this case) all dinosaurs came from. This method is always being updated and dinosaurs are getting moved around all the time every time a new one is discovered. Nevertheless, I think this method is easiest to use for our purposes because it does resemble a family tree, which is something we are all familiar with.

Let's start the clade, or family tree, at the Superorder, dinosauria, which lands between Class and Order on our classification chart. Scientists do love their structure. From there, they branch off into either ornithischian or saurischian. And, then it gets complicated. The tree structure begins to branch out into many different directions. Now, again, we're trying to make this as simple as possible, so there are probably branches I may be skipping, but you will still get the idea of how the structure works. I will also try to give a dinosaur representative for each node on the branch. We will go into each type of dinosaur in depth in another topic.

Next-Dinosaur Family Tree-Ornithiscians.