Note the five digits on the hind feet, the quadrupedal gait, the
enormous stretch of neck and tail, the small head aligned with the
vertebral column. Diplodocus was fully sixty-five feet long and
must have weighed about twenty tons. The thigh bones of the
Sauropoda are the largest bones which ever grew. That of a genus
allied to the Diplodocus measures six feet and eight inches, and
the total length of the animal must have been not far from eighty
feet, the largest land animal known.
The Sauropoda became extinct when their haunts along the rivers
and lakes of the western plains of Jurassic times were invaded by
the Cretaceous interior sea.
The _beaked dinosaurs_ (Predentata) were distinguished by a beak
sheathed with horn carried in front of the tooth-set jaw, and
used, we may imagine, in stripping the leaves and twigs of trees
and shrubs. We may notice only two of the most interesting types.
[Illustration: Fig. 331. Stegosaurus]
_Stegosaurus_ (plated reptile) takes its name from the double row of
bony plates arranged along its back. The powerful tail was armed
with long spines, and the thick skin was defended with irregular
bits of bone implanted in it. The brain of the stegosaur was
smaller than that of any land vertebrate, while in the sacrum the
nerve canal was enlarged to ten times the capacity of the brain
cavity of the skull. Despite their feeble wits, this well-armored
family lived on through millions of years which intervened between
their appearance, at the opening of the Jurassic, and the close of
the Cretaceous, when they became extinct.
A less stupid brute than the stegosaur was _Triceratops_, the
dinosaur of the three horns,--one horn carried on the nose, and a
massive pair set over the eyes (Fig. 332). Note the enormous wedge-shaped
skull, with its sharp beak, and the hood behind resembling a
fireman's helmet. Triceratops was fully twenty-five feet long, and
of twice the bulk of an elephant. The family appeared in the Upper
Cretaceous and became extinct at its close. Their bones are found
buried in the fresh-water deposits of the time from Colorado to
Montana and eastward to the Dakotas.
[Illustration: Fig. 332. Restoration of Triceratops
By courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History]
=Marine reptiles.= In the ocean, reptiles occupied the place now
held by the aquatic mammals, such as whales and dolphins, and
their form and structure were similarly modified to suit their
environment. In the Ichthyosaurus (fish reptile), for example, the
body was fishlike in form, with short neck and large, pointed head
(Fig. 333).
[Illustration: Fig. 333. Ichthyosaurus]
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