I was going to do Edmontosaurus, but again I just couldn't motivate myself to. I really wasn't sure what to do for this one, but I settled on Camptosaurus Dispar.
Camptosaurus Dispar was an ornithopod of the group Iguaodontia, similar to the groups namesake (and one of the first dinosaurs discovered) Iguanodon. Camptosaurus lived in the Late Jurassic 150 million years ago, and was one of the first large Iguanodontids, as the group would only truly dominate come the Cretaceous. Campy was 5 meters long and lived in the Utah-Wyoming area. The name means "Seperate Flexible Lizard," which was an impressively difficult name to find the complete meaning of, since all the sources I checked only had the genus name's meaning defined (Flexible lizard.) I ended up finding the meaning of Dispar from an article about a species of moth, go figure.
Camptosaurus was an herbivore and would've foraged for food close the ground. It had a distinctively arched back which would have helped it keep its face near to the ground. It also had remarkably strong thumbs, meaning the animal would have probably been one of the champion thumb wrestlers of the Jurassic Period. This has also led scientists to believe that, although its hips are primarily built for a bipedal organism, it could have moved around on all fours to better forage for food, as its strong thumbs could help support the weight.
Quasicamptmodosaurus be in yo cathedral, eaten all yo low lying foliage
Camptosaurus also has an interesting story regarding its skull. Campto was long thought to have had a very boxy rectangular skull. This skull was discovered by Othniel Charles Marsh, the famous paleontologist, but it was recently revealed that this skull did not belong to Camptosaurus. This skull had actually belonged to a different animal, Theiophytalia, this whole time. Camptosaurus had a more sloping skull, as seen above. This is pretty ironic, since Marsh viciously mocked his rival Edward Drinker Cope for putting the skull of an Elasmosaurus on the end of its tail instead of its neck. But hey, at least Cope put the skull on the right animal.
That wraps up today's post. I'm not sure what to do next, someone should suggest something. Leave a comment and I'll do it.
-Athos
No comments:
Post a Comment