Dinosaur eggs come in all shapes and sizes. They tend to be ovoid or spherical in shape and up to 30cm in length - about the size of a rugby ball. The smallest dinosaur egg so far found is only 3cm long. Once the egg has been fossilised it will become hard like rock, but it will retain a structure of its own. The smallest fully-grown fossil dinosaur is the little bird-hipped plant-eater like lesothosaurus, which was only the size of a chicken. Smaller fossilised examples have been found, but these are of baby dinosaurs.
One of the most intelligent dinosaurs was Troodon. It was a hunting dinosaur, about 2 metres long, and had a brain size similar to that of a mammal or bird of today, stereoscopic vision, and grasping hands. Stegosaurus had a brain the size of a walnut - only 3 centimetres long and weighing 75 grams. However, comparing brain size to body size sauropodomorphs, like Plateosaurus, were probably one of the dumbest dinosaurs.
The tallest dinosaurs were the Brachiosaurid group of sauropods. Their front legs were longer than the rear legs giving them a giraffe-like stance. This combined with their extremely long necks, which were held vertically, meant they could browse off the tallest trees. Brachiosaurus - the most well known of the group - was 13 metres tall. Sauroposeidon was massive and probably grew to The speediest dinosaurs were the ostrich mimic ornithomimids, such as Dromiceiomimus, which could probably run at speeds of up to 60 kilometres per hour.
The oldest known dinosaur is Saltopus. It was a small carnivore that lived million years ago. Remains of this dinosaur have only been found in Scotland, so the UK might hold the key to the origin of dinosaurs. Some of these dinos are terrifying instinctual predators, while others are relatively passive — unless provoked. Whether herbivore, carnivore, or omnivore, these dinosaurs can do immense damage to anyone who crosses their path. Throughout the entirety of the film franchise, these creatures have enthralled children and adults alike, and it remains to be seen how many of them will make a return in 's Jurassic World: Dominion , presumably the last in the series.
Though not typically aggressive, the Stygimoloch is quite a dangerous dinosaur when riled up. With a hard cranium used primarily for ramming, this little dino can cause a lot of damage when it charges at full speed.
Owen Grady manages to manipulate one into ramming through a cell door in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, allowing him and Claire to escape. In the film franchise, both use their hard heads to charge and attack, though many paleontologists and scientists have questioned the probability of this theory as it relates to the real world dinosaurs.
At first glance, Compsognathus don't look like the most dangerous dinosaur of the bunch. In fact, they're slightly adorable in many ways, mostly due to their diminutive size and overall chipper demeanor. Alas, it's all a smokescreen for their true intentions. Compys hunt in packs, and although one alone isn't much of a threat, a horde is capable of taking down very large prey. This was demonstrated with horrific effect in The Lost World when a full-grown man is easily overwhelmed by a pack of relentless Compys who tear him apart off camera.
It's a startling example of why any creature from the Jurassic period should not be underestimated. Large lizards with sharp teeth should be an immediate red flag to stay away. This includes the Dilophosaurus, a dinosaur slightly larger than a big dog that possesses a few terrifying evolutionary hunting abilities. The full horror of this creature was unleashed in the first film when one crossed paths with Dennis Nedry in one of the grisliest death scenes of the Jurassic Park franchise.
At first, the creature seemed curious, but when it identified Nedry as prey, it flared its hood with aggression and spit venom at his eyes to blind him. Left to its own devices, this poison was also capable of paralyzing prey, allowing the Dilophosaur to devour a warm meal.
Jurassic Park III first introduced terror from above when it debuted the Pteranodon, a fearsome winged predator of immense size that was capable of grabbing humans like featherweights and carrying them off to be devoured. The survivors of Isla Sorna barely made it out alive after entering their pen. This creature is a flying terror straight out of a child's worst nightmare, and not something anyone would want to cross paths with.
One of Giganotosaurus' most noteworthy features is its thin, pointed tail. LiveScience explained how experts saw this as a hint of this gigantic predator's surprising agility — it could have acted as a stabilizer of sorts, maintaining the ferocious meat-eater's balance as it made sharp turns and chased after its prey. With its strong legs, scientists estimate that it could have reached a top speed of 31 mph while sprinting compared to T. Interestingly, some experts argue that Giganontosaurus could maintain its own body temperature regardless of its environment and grow really fast.
Due to its relatively weaker bite force than T. Were you expecting this list of dangerous dinosaurs to feature meat-eaters from start to finish? Ankylosaurus, the dinosaur equivalent of a tank fused with a wrecking ball, would probably beg to differ. Among all the armored dinosaurs paleontologists have identified so far, Ankylosaurus is one of the largest, clocking in at about The distinctive bony knobs and scutes also called osteoderms adorning Ankylosaurus' back makes it one of the most easily recognizable dinosaurs in popular culture.
Based on LiveScience 's description, Ankylosaurus' oval-shaped scutes formed within its skin and were probably covered with keratin, the same material that makes up human fingernails and rhinoceros horns.
Bony plates and spikes formed rows running down Ankylosaurus' hips and back and likely extended to its legs and tail. It even sported a pseudo-helmet of plates and horns, protecting its head and eyes. Apart from its natural armor, though, what truly made Ankylosaurus a formidable foe was the massive club at the tip of its tail.
Based on modern estimates , the massive, fused bone club could have been powerful enough to break an attacker's legs. In fact, the Redpath Museum features a specimen of Gorgosaurus, a meat-eating dinosaur, with a right leg that apparently broke and healed while it was still alive.
It's believed that an Ankylosaurus left that carnivore with a literal lasting impression. The second plant-eater on this list, Argentinosaurus, is here because of one big reason — it was, well, big. In fact, it may have been one of, if not the biggest land animal to walk the planet.
Since paleontologists have yet to find a complete Argentinosaurus skeleton, they had to work with whatever remains were available, as explained in a Phys. Using some vertebra and leg bones, experts were able to estimate the late Cretaceous long-neck's length and weight — roughly SyFy Wire speculated that super-sized sauropods like Argentinosaurus were able to thrive precisely because of their immense bulk.
After all, since it would take even a large-sized meat-eater like Tyrannosaurus or Giganotosaurus too much time and effort to take down a single sauropod, it makes sense that they'd go after smaller, easier targets instead. And of course, there's the possibility of getting crushed under Argentinosaurus' massive foot.
In , researchers described a rare fossil find from the Jurassic period — a prehistoric turtle seemingly squished by a sauropod via Scientific American. Now imagine what an Argentinosaurus' foot could do. Being super-sized didn't automatically mean that dinosaurs like Argentinosaurus were completely safe from other dinosaurs that wanted to eat it for lunch.
Meet Mapusaurus, the massive meat-eater that experts believe was bold enough to hunt and feast on Argentinosaurus and other huge dinosaurs. ABC News reported that when paleontologists unearthed the remains of this foot-long predator in a bone bed in Argentina, they actually found several individuals, including a few younger ones, grouped together.
While it's possible that the corpses just ended up getting deposited there by a seasonal stream, some experts have suggested that this could be the first evidence of social behavior among meat-eating dinosaurs. Given how it probably would have required a bit of teamwork to take down a titan like Argentinosaurus, the idea of Mapusaurus hunting in packs isn't that far-fetched.
As paleontologist and co-discoverer Phil Currie told ABC News , "Carnivores, when you find them all together like this, were probably packing animals with coordinated hunting efforts. The mere thought of a shark can make people feel extremely terrified and uneasy.
It was three feet tall — about as tall as an adult human — and was light. It did not have a reptilian appearance, but looked more like a bird, and may have even had feathers!
At the end of its tail was a thick tail club that could break the legs of even the largest theropods. Saurophaganax was like Allosaurus, only bigger, nastier, and mightier. It was the grizzly bear of the Jurassic period, challenging Allosaurus, Edmarka and Epanterias. It had huge claws and ferocious jaws. While not a dinosaur, Liopleurodon had a bite 10 times as strong as Tyrannosaurus. It grew to feet long, the biggest prehistoric marine reptile. Spinosaurus is a genus of theropod dinosaur that lived in what now is North Africa, during the lower Albian to lower Cenomanian stages of the Cretaceous period, about to 97 million years ago.
Tyrannosaurus, meaning "tyrant lizard", from the Ancient Greek tyrannos, "tyrant", and sauros, "lizard" is a genus of coelurosaurian theropod dinosaur.
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