How long did diplodocus live

Diplodocus was a strict herbivore. Fossil records show wear that indicates that it used its small head and slender teeth to reach into groups and of trees and strip branches of edible fibrous material.

Conifers were the most abundant tree during the Jurassic Era, so it is safe to assume that these trees made up a large part of the Diplodocus diet. It is also thought that it fed on ferns, bushes, and the foliage of other trees. Studies of the skeletal structure of Diplodocus lead paleontologists to believe that Diplodocus could rear up on its hind legs to reach food high in the tree tops, allowing it to feed on many different levels. Some experts hypothesize that they were also capable of reaching, with their long necks, into marshes and swamplands to eat soft water plants, perhaps even submerged plants.

This dinosaur had to eat so much at its size it is hard to believe that it had a limited menu. Just like the rest of the sauropods, Diplodocus was a quadrupedal walker.

The feet of a Diplodocus were similar to those of a modern-day elephant and both animals are large and sturdy creatures, so their walking motion should be similar.

Even though Diplodocus only moved at a walking pace, its long legs and huge size made it possible for this dinosaur to move at an estimated miles per hour. Due to their large diets and herding tendencies, groups of Diplodocus were constantly on the move in search of food.

When the food supply in their area became depleted, the moved elsewhere throughout the western North American continent to graze. A great number of Diplodocus fossils have been unearthed and they give us a good idea of what area these herds inhabited. Diplodocus discoveries have been made in Colorade, Utah, Montana, and Wyoming, so there is reason to believe that they stayed in the western-most part of North America. Future discoveries may extend this range. Samuel W.

Williston was digging around in Canon City, Colorado when he discovered the first Diplodocus fossil. It had just one claw unusually large compared to other sauropods in its front limb. Their ribs were not attached to their backbone. Their tail, probably used to maintain counterbalance the neck, carried around 80 caudal vertebrae. Their neck carried around 15 vertebrae. Many Diplodocus species have been found and described between and Even though Diplodocus remains are commonly found in the Morrison Formation in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and Utah, yet the skull has never been found.

Original type species D. Several other complete specimens have been attributed to D. The vertebrae back bones are split down the middle and this space could have held ligaments like these. In a cast of a Diplodocus skeleton was donated to the Museum by the wealthy businessman Andrew Carnegie, based on the original specimen in the Carnegie Museum in the USA. King Edward VII had requested a copy of the newly discovered dinosaur after seeing a picture of it in Carnegie's Scottish castle.

From to early the cast - known affectionately as Dippy - was on display in the Museum's Hintze Hall. In , Dippy's tail was lifted from the ground after research revealed that Diplodocus tails would have been raised high to balance the neck. Every two years or so, Museum experts used specialist equipment to clean the bones that make up Dippy. It takes two staff two days to clean the cast and make sure it is maintained for future generations to enjoy. Dippy has now left the Museum to go on a natural history adventure.

Dinosaurs have a new family tree. Here the arguments are murkier, and complicated by the fact that even small, warm-blooded animals like parrots can have long life spans. Most experts believe that the life spans of smaller herbivorous and carnivorous dinosaurs were directly proportional to their size, for example, the chicken-sized Compsognathus might have lived for five or 10 years, while a much bigger Allosaurus might have topped out at 50 or 60 years.

However, if it can be conclusively proved that any given dinosaur was warm-blooded, cold-blooded, or something in between, these estimates would be subject to change.

You might think that an analysis of actual dinosaur bones would help clear up the issue of how fast dinosaurs grew and how long they lived, but frustratingly, this isn't the case.

As the biologist, R. Reid writes in The Complete Dinosaur , "[bone] growth was often continuous, as in mammals and birds, but sometimes periodic, as in reptiles, with some dinosaurs following both styles in different parts of their skeletons. What it all boils down to is this: some dinosaurs, such as the duck-billed Hypacrosaurus, grew at phenomenal rates, reaching adult sizes of a few tons in a mere dozen or so years presumably, this accelerated rate of growth reduced the juveniles' window of vulnerability to predators.

The trouble is, everything we know about cold-blooded metabolism is inconsistent with this pace of growth, which may well mean that Hypacrosaurus in particular and large, herbivorous dinosaurs in general had a type of warm-blooded metabolism, and thus maximum life spans well below the years ventured above.

By the same token, other dinosaurs seem to have grown more like crocodiles and less like mammals, at a slow and steady pace, without the accelerated curve seen during infancy and adolescence. Sarcosuchus , the ton crocodile better known as the "SuperCroc," probably took about 35 or 40 years to reach adult size, and then continued growing slowly for as long as it lived.

If sauropods followed this pattern, that would point to a cold-blooded metabolism, and their estimated life spans would once again edge up toward the multiple-century mark. So what can we conclude? Clearly, until we establish more details about the metabolism and growth rates of various species, any serious estimates of dinosaur lifespans have to be taken with a gigantic grain of prehistoric salt!