Webosaurs Blog

Hey dinos, Silu here with the Daily Dino Fact! Today’s fact comes from EB and tells the story of a very unique Allosaurus named Big Al. Enjoy!

This is a story of an Allosaurus found in North America. 95% of his Bones were found well preserved. But he died not even full-grown and the bones were found in the same position of which he had died in. He has Many Injuries and some were found even healing. One severe injury was a swollen foot, but overall he had 11 broken bones in total. Rib injuries were thought to have been made by the whip of a diplodocus’ tail, and yet he broke his tail by falling down. Ripped arms could have been cause by fighting a female Allosaur. Females are much large and more aggressive than males. But even though big Al too all these injures he got killed by a drought, dying next to a dried up river bed, but he could have died of starvation because the swollen toe would have ended his hunting days. He died just at the age of six, not even reaching adulthood. This was an extraordinary creature, but a sad story.

-Earthbound

Hey dinos! Today’s Daily Dino Fact comes from Doggy, who wrote this awesome post about the ferocious Megalodon! Take it from here, Doggy. -Silu

Q: What is a Megalodon?

A: Well, to start off the Megalodon was a prehistoric fish. Today, I like to think of a Shark like the Megalodon because all other fish feared them, much like dinos feared the Tyrannosaurus Rex or Allosaurus. The megalodon might have been the most largest and most powerful macro-predatory fish in vertebrete  history.

Most fossil remians of this fish shows that it was the biggest shark that has ever lived back then. So, if you are wondering the name “Megalodon” actually means “Big Tooth” in it’s greek origin. A megalodon could bite down so hard that when it bites it has a much weight over 42,000 pounds! Wow!

Peace in the East!
Doggy

The claw! The CLAAAAAWWWW!!!!

Hey everyone! Today’s Daily Dino Fact comes from Irvine, who wrote this awesome post on Therizinosaurs. I’ll let him take it from here. -Rex

Q: What dinosaur had the largest claw?

A: Well, Therizinosaurus is the perfect answer! This dinosaur live on Nemegt Desert 75 million years ago, that will be on Mongolia. This dinosaurs have a claw that about 28 inch long, that’s about an adult human arm long, also this dinosaur is herbivore, eating leafs and vegetables…

This dinosaurs is in a group of Therizinosauria, the giant claw group, the dinosaur that related to this amazing species is Alxasaurus. Therizinosaurus means ‘the scythe reptile’ and a vegetarian, its claws used for cutting through trees, this dinosaurs weight is about 4-7 tons.

-Irvine

Iz all up in ur habitatz, eating ur herbivorez

Q: What was the fiercest prehistoric cat of them all? -Irvine

A: Well well well, Irvine. This is a great question. Obviously, sabre toothed cats and wooly mammoths and the like came long after the time of the dinosaurs, in the Early Pleistocene. You bring up a great point about the cats though, because most everyone knows about the famed Smilodon AKA “sabre toothed tiger” but did you know there were many other sabre toothed cats at this time?

There are at least 40 known genera of sabre toothed cats from the Pleistocene, and not all of them even come from the same family! For some reason, multiple groups of mammals evolved to have giant sharp teeth protruding out of their mouths. Nature has a funny way of experimenting with ways to eat other animals!

Who knew Little Fang was so lethal?

We can’t really say for sure which one was the MOST fierce, because you have to admit they’re all pretty gnarly. We’d have to go with Smilodon though, as they were the biggest of all of them. Some of them weighed up to 1,200 lbs (500 kg) !! That is how much a grizzly bear can weigh. Yeah, these guys were nasty. Add giant teeth that grew to 11 inches (28 cm) long and you’ve got a prehistoric killing machine on your hands.

-Rex

Hatzegotpteryx like WHOA

-Rex

Koolasuchus? More like... KoolaAWESOMEus

Q: What was the largest amphibian during the time of the dinosaurs? -Muclser

A: We all know the Mesozoic was the time of the dinosaurs. But we’ve also learned about the flyers, the swimmers, the bugs and the mammals. One group we haven’t talked about is the amphibians! You know these creatures today… frogs, salamanders, geckos and much more. As with many modern day creatures that existed in the past, the Mesozoic versions of amphibians were huge creatures!! The most common type of Mesozoic were the Temnospondyli, which were prevalent in the Triassic and few survived through the Cretaceous.

Koolasuchus, pictured above, was one of the biggest Temnospondyli. This dude grew to be about 16 feet  (about 5m) long! The picture above doesn’t do it justice.

Koolasuchus was the size of this boat. Must have eaten some pretty large bugs.

You may not know this, but there was a large extinction event between the Triassic and Jurassic periods (want to know more? ask me in the comments) and it killed off most of the large Temnospondyli. The remaining ones through the rest of the Mesozoic were mostly small, except for our super awesome friend Koolasuchus – who lasted through the Early Cretaceous.

-Rex

RAWR!

Q: Who is the first ceratopsian that first appear? Irvine

A: Good question Irvine! As you know, ceratopsians only lived during the Cretaceous perod. Still, their history is a little fuzzy because of an incomplete fossil record. Ceratopsians are very well known for being the most “all-american” dinosaur. That is, the vast majority of their fossils come from North America, and a few in Asia.

As far as paleontologists can tell, the earliest known ceratopsian dinosaur is Psittacosaurus. Unlike other ceratopsians, these guys were bi-pedal (walked on two feet) dinosaurs and were about the size of a gazelle. Psittacosaurus is a genus of dinosaur, and known for having the most species of dinosaurs than any other genus even though it is not as famous as the Triceratops. They first showed up on the earth during the Early Cretaceous around 130-100 million years ago.

Their sharp beak is perhaps the most significant characteristic it shares with other ceratopsians. The rest of it doesn’t look too similar to a Triceratops though!

-Rex

Settle down, old timer

Q: Who is older – Horns, Stretch, Rexxy or Pterry? -Rahuu

A: That’s a great question Rahuu! Keep in mind that the Webosaurs characters are based off dinosaurs, and exactly what species each one is isn’t entirely clear. For example, Horns is closest to being a Triceratops but could be any number of Ceratopsians. Stretch, likewise, could be any number of Sauropod species. So, to answer this question we’ll have to consider each character a part of a group. Horns represents the Ceratopsians, Stretch represents the Sauropods, Pterry reps the Pterosaurs and Rexxy reps the Theropods.

Let’s take a look at when each group first showed up on the Earth. Remember that dinosaurs existed during the Mesozoic era (defined as the time of the dinosaurs). The Mesozoic era had three periods – first was the Triassic, then the Jurassic and finally the Cretaceous. Dinosaurs showed up at the beginning of the Triassic and died at the end of the Cretaceous.

Horns/Ceratopsians – Existed during the Cretaceous period

Stretch/Sauropods – Late Triassic through the Cretaceous

Pterry/Pterosaurs – Late Triassic through the Cretaceous

Rexxy/Theropods – Early Triassic through the Cretaceous

Rexxy and the Theropods are the longest living group of dinosaurs in the Mesozoic. Theropod dinosaurs are, by fact, the only meat-eating dinosaurs (Pterosaurs aren’t technically dinosaurs). In any food chain, you have the plant eaters and the meat eaters. It would make sense that the meat-eaters would have been around the longest.

So there you have it! Rexxy is the oldest. Maybe that’s why he’s the leader?

-Rex

Ethanator's bluggin' Archaeopteryx project

A few days ago Ethantor contacted me about this awesome Archaeopteryx project he did for his school. He wanted me to share pictures of his project with the rest of you, and take the chance to talk about Archaeopteryx – the early bird he based his project on. Archaeopteryx was the first known bird we’ve ever found and it lived way back in the Late Jurassic. It is said that the bird is the link between dinosaurs and modern day birds, and is the earliest example of feather impressions found in fossils.

Archaeopteryx was a meat eater and had many characteristics of theropod dinosaurs. Paleontologists aren’t sure whether the bird was a glider or could fly like birds today, but everyone is sure that Archaeopteryx was a pretty stinkin’ cool animal.

Thanks for sharing your pictures with us Ethanator, you did a great job! Feel free to share your thoughts and knowledge about Archaeopteryx in the blog comments.

.-Rex