110 Million-year-old Dinosaur Mummy Weighing 3000lbs Found In Canada With Its Skin and Gut Contents Intact

Dinosaurs have captured the imaginations of mankind since the discovery of their fossils. Imagining that animals the size of airplanes roaming freely on the Earth; has sent shivers down the spine of humans. Thanks to books, movies, comics, and cartoons, we have been enamored with the dinosaurs and now, dinosaur fossils have been discovered all over the world.

Despite being extinct for the last 70 odd million years, newer and newer species of dinosaurs have been discovered and this is a story of one such species of dinosaur that had some unbelievable features with it. Read to find out what is so special with this dinosaur.

1Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs first appeared on Earth in the Triassic period some 243-233 million years ago. Becoming the most dominant species on Earth in short time, the dinosaurs ruled the planet and their remains are found on every continent on the planet.

There were dinosaurs that walked on the ground, were marine and some species could even fly. Many dinosaurs were bipedal, some walked on all four legs. Every dinosaur species has some sort of horns or crests as a defense mechanism, including bony body armor and even bony spines.

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2Origins of Dinosaurs

Origin of dinosaur is subjected to extensive research. As per a 2006 study, more than 500 non-avian dinosaur genera have been identified and classified accordingly. 1047 diverse genus of dinosaurs had been named have been named till 2008 and more have been named since then.

Dinosaurs have been found to come into existence after the Permian–Triassic extinction event which wiped out 95% of all life on Earth. The earliest proof of dinosaurs was rock formations which had fossils of Eoraptor, which was 231.4 million years old when carbon dated.

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3Difference of Size of dinosaurs

The Triassic, early Jurassic, late Jurassic and Cretaceous periods saw differently sized dinosaurs roaming the Earth and the sky. One can find dinosaurs of the Cenozoic era of weights 2-5 kg, while Mesozoic era dinosaurs weighed in the 1- 10 metric tonnes.

The Sauropods were the heaviest and largest dinosaurs to ever roam the Earth. Even the smallest Sauropods were bigger than anything that had walked the Earth then and even now. Only the Blue Whale gives these Sauropods a run for their money in size and weight.

The smallest dinosaur ever known is the bee hummingbird with a length of just 5 cm and weight of 1.8gms. Anchiornis huxleyi, on the other hand, was the smallest non-aviary dinosaur at 118 gms and 1.12 ft height.

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4Aviary dinosaurs- True or not?

In 1868, Thomas Henry Huxley put forth the idea that birds evolved from dinosaurs. Archaeopteryx was the first fossil to connect between dinosaurs and birds. The dinosaur was covered by feathers and gave scientists the first evidence that birds evolved from dinosaurs.

However, despite popular opinion, there weren’t any dinosaurs that could fly. There were many non-dinosaur flying reptiles like Plesiosaurus, Pteranodon, Pterodactylus, Dimorphodon, Rhamphorhynchus, Quetzalcoatlus, and many others.

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5Plant Eaters or Meat Eaters- who wins in numbers?

Despite all the Jurassic Park movies, most of the dinosaurs were herbivores- meaning they ate plants. There were carnivores as well, meaning they hunted other dinosaurs. It so happened cause plant eaters formed a food chain, which fed to the carnivores. If a T-Rex hunted down a triceratops, it would have enough food to last a lifetime for the T-Rex.

65 percent of the dinosaurs were plant eaters and 35 percent were meat-eaters. More plant-eating dinosaur fossils have been found, as compared to that of carnivore dinosaurs. A few of the dinosaurs were omnivores, meaning they ate plants, eggs, insects, etc. Example of omnivores can be Ornithomimus and Oviraptor.

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