Animals of the PastLucas, Frederic A. (Frederic Augustus)
Science
Animals of the Past
Lucas, Frederic A. (Frederic Augustus)
Paleontology
It is a difficult matter to estimate the weight of a live Diplodocus or
a Brontosaurus, but it is pretty safe to say that it would not be far
from 20 tons, and that one would devour at the very least something over
700 pounds of leaves or twigs or plants each day--more, if the animal
felt really hungry.
But here we must, even if reluctantly, curb our imagination a little and
consider another point: the cold-blooded, sluggish reptiles, as we know
them to-day, do not waste their energies in rapid movements, or in
keeping the temperature of their bodies above that of the air, and so by
no means require the amount of food needed by more active, warm-blooded
animals. Alligators, turtles, and snakes will go for weeks, even months,
without food, and while this applies more particularly to those that
dwell in temperate climes and during their winter hibernation
practically suspend the functions of digestion and respiration, it is
more or less true of all reptiles. And as there is little reason for
supposing that reptiles behaved in the past any differently from what
they do in the present, these great Dinosaurs may, after all, not have
been gifted with such ravenous appetites as one might fancy. Still, it
is dangerous to lay down any hard and fast laws concerning animals, and
he who writes about them is continually obliged to qualify his
remarks--in sporting parlance, to hedge a little, and in the present
instance there is some reason, based on the arrangement of vertebrae and
ribs, to suppose that the lungs of Dinosaurs were somewhat like those of
birds, and that, as a corollary, their blood may have been better
aerated and warmer than that of living reptiles. But, to return to the
question of food.
From the peculiar character of the articulations of the limb-bones, it
is inferred that these animals were largely aquatic in their habits, and
fed on some abundant species of water plants. One can readily see the
advantage of the long neck in browsing off the vegetation on the bottom
of shallow lakes, while the animal was submerged, or in rearing the head
aloft to scan the surrounding shores for the approach of an enemy. Or,
with the tail as a counterpoise, the entire body could be reared out of
water and the head be raised some thirty feet in the air.
Triceratops, he of the three-horned face, had a remarkable skull which
projected backward over the neck, like a fireman's helmet, or a
sunbonnet worn hind side before, while over each eye was a massive horn
directed forward, a third, but much smaller horn being sometimes present
on the nose.
The little "Horned Toad," which isn't a toad at all, is the nearest
suggestion we have to-day of Triceratops; but, could he realize the
ambition of the frog in the fable and swell himself to the dimensions of
an ox, he would even then be but a pigmy compared with his ancient and
distant relative.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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