The smallest carnivorous dinosaurs. The largest carnivorous dinosaurs in history

Animals of the Mesozoic

What did the Earth look like during the Mesozoic period? Reptiles of huge and small sizes walked everywhere. Dinosaurs reigned for more than 165 million years, but mysteriously began to disappear. To gain knowledge about species, paleontologists study their fossils remaining on Earth. The remains of the smallest dinosaur have been found in North America. Fossils were discovered back in the 1970s. thanks to Elizabeth Nichols at the University of Alberta in Canada.

Bones of unknown species

It is unclear how these small bones were stored in cabinets until they were found by Nick Longrich. So they were identified quite recently. The new species was given the name Hesperonychus elizabethae. Scientists studied the shape of the skeleton's pelvis and were able to prove that the ancient lizard was an adult representative of these individuals, just small by nature.

The bones of such a small dinosaur were the hardest to find, as they decomposed faster and fell into pieces. However, scientists were able to detect it in North America, in the Canadian province of Alberta. This previously unknown species of dinosaur weighed no more than 1 kg and was about 70 cm long. It was proven that the creature lived about 150 million years ago.

Dinosaur the size of a cat

Canadian paleontologists have announced that miniature dinosaurs occupied an important link in the food chain. Most small dinosaur was the size of a domestic cat, although it was dangerous predator. Its main sources of nutrition were insects and small mammals. In addition, when hunting in a pack, they could attack the young of other dinosaurs.

Such a miniature lizard ran briskly on its feet and defended itself very sharp teeth and sickle-shaped claws. Nick Longrich, who proved the existence of the species and named it in honor of Elizabeth Nichols, believes that they lived in large quantities in the forests Cretaceous.

Anatomical structure

The anatomical structure makes Hesperonychus elizabethae similar to velociraptors found in Asia - two-legged predators, well known from the film “Jurassic Park” by Steven Spielberg. The small lizards were even more similar to the ancient four-winged microraptors. Paleontologists speculate that these populations may have shared a common land route between Alaska and Siberia.

By the way, quite recently Longrich found and described a second very small predator living in the territory of the present North America. Albertonykus borealis did not exceed 60 cm in height and ate small insects: ants and termites.

Yulia Domakhina, Samogo.Net

The hero of many frightening films, the sinister and carnivorous pteranodon, in real life(just like pterodactyls and rhamforins) ate mainly fish, paying little attention to people. True, it should be taken into account that there were no people then. If he lived in our time, he would pose a considerable danger, since with a 15-meter wingspan and a weighty beak, he can kill purely by accident, with one sneeze, while trying to take a can of delicious sprats from a person.

It is similar to a Tyrannosaurus rex and is often replaced in many films when the Tyrannosaurus is unavailable or sick (for example, in the film "A Sound of Thunder"). It is believed to have reached 8 and a half meters in length and 3 and a half meters in height. Scientists are debating whether Allosaurus was a collective animal or lived separately, outside the pack. There are two arguments here: on the one hand, allosaur bones are found in bulk from many individuals. On the other hand, the creature was too aggressive to live together in a large society. However, to devour a person, even one Allosaurus, even the most recent outcast loser, is enough.

Known to science for a long time, since the nineteenth century. It weighed one and a half tons and was nine meters long. He ate other smaller lizards. There was something akin to a horn on the head, so Majungasaurus worked not only with its teeth, but also with its head. It is believed that he had poor vision, but had a strong sense of smell. So in modern times it could be used to find drugs and eat drug lords.

It is not clear why this creature was called Sarcosuchus. They would immediately call it “a huge crocodile”, and it would immediately be clear who they were talking about. The great-great-great-grandfather of the crocodile Gena grew up to 12 meters and fattened up to 6 tons. It is twice the size of any modern crocodile; if a sarcosuchus crosses the road, this is a very, very bad omen.

A four-ton predator 12 meters long. Scientists on the sidelines say that a more massive species of carchadontosaurs could live in Nigeria - 14 meters long and weighing 9 tons. He was a lone hunter, and he was probably pretty good at it. Most likely, he simply died out of boredom when he realized that he had already achieved everything in this life.

A true showbiz superstar, old T. rex is no longer considered the largest fossil land predator. They still make films about it, write books and tell stories, since it was the tyrannosaurus in the old school programs portrayed as the main embodiment of evil. And yet paleontology does not stand still!

However, if the T. rex saw you, it wouldn’t stand still either - its pumped up hind legs carried a two-ton mass at breakneck speed, and its jaws could bite through the body armor of most herbivorous lizards. What can we say about you? You won’t even hear him approaching in your headphones.

A seven-meter mobile school predator. The brain cavity in the cranium is closer in volume to birds than to other predatory lizards. Hence the logical conclusion of paleontologists that Utahraptor could have been more cunning and smarter than a typical dinosaur. But still, Utahraptor was hardly such an insidious intellectual as Hollywood scriptwriters imagine him to be in a narcotic stupor - birds are also different, compare the behavior of city sparrows and these hillbilly hens in your spare time.

In movies, Utahraptors are not as frequent guests as Velociraptors, which is strange, since Utahraptor is four times larger and just as many times more dangerous (according to police reports).

The largest complete skeleton of this African resident, after measurement, showed a length of 12 meters. However, there is good evidence to suggest the existence of specimens as long as 18 meters in length, so Spinosaurus may well be in contention for the top spot on this list. The Spinosaurus is an extremely unpleasant creature in appearance, according to the identikit. True, some paleontologists offer an alternative vision, even more unpleasant - with a hump and trunk - since, according to their version, he ate mainly fish. Check this at your first meeting.

Let's say right away that the most popular pliosaur among the people is Liopleurodon. You also need to know the fact that pliosaurs are the largest predators that have ever lived on our planet, since 20 meters is quite an accessible size for them. The flippers alone grew up to 3 meters, and the teeth - up to 40 centimeters. Thank God Poseidon that pliosaurs, sea creatures, did not swim into cities.

Paleontologists once found an 18-meter pliosaur skeleton in Mexico. It would seem like a harsh, formidable creature! But the thing is that on these bones they found damage caused by the teeth of another, even larger pliosaur, about 25 meters away!

A close relative of Allosaurus (they still talk on the phone). For the first time in scientific literature described in 1995, i.e. two years after the release of Spielberg's Jurassic Park. That’s why I didn’t have time to pass the casting. But he played main role in half a dozen console games.

Giganotosaurs may have lived in packs. The length of their body reached 15 meters in moments of inspiration - this is almost like four Lada Kalina cars. I wonder how long he would digest them? The Giganotosaurus skull is 40 centimeters larger than the Tyrannosaurus rex skull! So in the event of a face-to-face meeting, the outcome would be clear. Another thing is that in time these two lizards missed each other by about 30 million years.

If giant lizards overrun the Earth again, Russians have a relatively high chance of surviving due to the cold climate (although Sochi and Crimea will have to be surrendered, yes). However, in the case of the Giganotosaurus, everything is much worse: scientists suggest that it could have been warm-blooded and could well have been covered with hair or feathers. So he is able to reach Moscow.

Eoraptorlunensis is considered the most primitive among all dinosaurs. It received this name in 1993, when in the foothills of the Andes, located in Argentina, rocks, which are 228 million years old, researchers discovered the skeleton of this creature. Scientists classified this dinosaur, whose body length reached 1 m, as a theropod - predatory dinosaurs from the ornithischian order.

Its legs resembled bird legs, each of which had 4 functional fingers, and at the end of the creature’s muzzle there was a toothless beak.

Sauropods were representatives of the suborder of saurian dinosaurs. They were distinguished from other monsters by their incredibly long neck and tail. Sauropods walked on four limbs. These herbivorous dinosaurs inhabited most of the land in the Cretaceous and Jurassic periods (208-65 million years ago).

Scientists believe that the heaviest dinosaurs were:

• Titanosaurs Antarctosaurus giganteus (giant arctic lizards), fossils of which were discovered in Argentina and India. Their weight reached 40-80 tons. Moreover approximate weight the Argentine titanosaur (Argentinosaurus) could reach up to 100 tons. Such estimates were made in 1994 based on measurements of the size of its giant vertebrae.
• Brachiosaurs Brachiosaurus altithorax (arm lizards), got their name due to their long forelimbs. The weight of these giants was 45-55 tons.
• Diplodocus Seismosaurus halli (earth-shaking lizards) and Supersaurus vivianae, whose weight exceeded 50 tons, and according to some sources could be close to 100 tons.

The largest and tallest species of dinosaurs

the skeleton of which was completely preserved was discovered in Tanzania, more precisely in Tedaguru, Brachiosaurus brancai. Its remains were found in Late Jurassic deposits formed 150-144 million years ago. Excavations were carried out by German expeditions in 1909-1911. The preparation of the bones and the assembly of the skeleton took place at the Natural History Museum at Berlin's Humboldt University. The dinosaur skeleton was created from the bones of not one, but several individuals in 1937. The total body length of the brachiosaurus was 22.2 m, the height at the withers was 6 m, and the height with the head raised was 14 m. During his lifetime, his weight, according to scientists, reached 30-40 tons. The fibula of another brachiosaurus, also kept in the museum, suggests that these dinosaurs could have been much larger.

The longest dinosaurs were

the brachiosaurus Breviparopus, whose body length could be 48 m, and the diplodocus Seismosaurus halli, discovered in the US state of New Mexico in 1994, whose body length reached 39-52 m. The basis for obtaining such estimates was a comparison of animal bones.

The smallest dinosaurs are considered

cosmognatus (elegant jaw) that lived in the southern part of Germany and the southeastern region of France and the little-studied herbivorous fabrosaurus that lived in the American state of Colorado. The length of these creatures, from the tip of the nose to the tip of the tail, was 70-75cm. The weight of the first reached 3 kg, the weight of the second - 6.8 kg.

Ankylosaurs are considered the most armored

of all the dinosaurs that existed on our planet. Their head and back were reliably protected by bone plates, spikes and horns. The width of their body was about 2.5 m. Their main hallmark there was a tail, at the end of which there was a huge mace.

The largest traces of a prehistoric lizard

There were traces discovered in 1932 in Salt Lake City, Utah. They belonged to a large hadrosaur (platypus) walking on its hind limbs. The length of the tracks was 136cm and the width was 81cm. Other reports from Colorado and the same Utah spoke of yet another tracks 95-100m wide. According to some data, the width of the hind paw prints of the largest brachiosaurs can reach 100 cm.

The largest skull

belonged to a torosaurus, a herbivorous lizard that wore a huge bone shield around its neck. The length of this dinosaur could reach 7.6 m and weight - 8 tons. The length of the skull alone, together with the ossified frill, was 3 m, and its weight was about 2 tons. This “brainy” creature lived in the territory of modern American states Texas and Montana.

In the line of the most toothy dinosaurs

in first place are the ornithomimids Pelecanimimus (bird-like dinosaurs). Their mouths contained more than 220 incredibly sharp teeth.

Owners of the longest claws

were therizinosaurs discovered in the Late Cretaceous sediments of the Nemegt basin, located in Mongolia. The length of their claw along the outer curvature could reach 91 cm. U Tyrannosaurus rex, for comparison, this value was 20.3 cm. Therizinosaurus had no teeth at all, and the skull was quite fragile. This lizard, according to scientists, ate termites.

Spinosaurus, whose total length reached 9 m and weighed about 2 tons, could also boast of its long claws. In January 1983, amateur paleontologist William Walker discovered a 30cm long claw belonging to a spinosaurus near Dorking, England.

The largest eggs

of all known to science dinosaurs were laid by the 12-meter titanosaur Hypselosaurus priscus, who lived on our planet about 80 million years ago. Fragments of his egg were discovered in October 1961 in the valley of the Durance River in France. According to scientists, its overall dimensions were 25.5 cm in diameter, 30 cm in length, and its capacity was 3.3 liters.

Scientists use the tracks created by dinosaurs to determine the speed of these animals. Thus, a trail found on the territory of the American state of Texas in 1981 allowed researchers to conclude that a certain carnivorous dinosaur was able to move at a speed of 40 km/h. It is known that some ornithomimids could run even faster. For example, the owner of a large brain, the 100-kilogram Dromiceiomimus, who lived at the end of the Cretaceous period in the territory of the modern Canadian province of Alberta, could easily outrun an ostrich, whose movement speed could exceed 60 km/h.

The smartest dinosaurs

Troodontids are considered to be those whose brain mass in relation to their body mass was comparable to the same parameters possessed by the smartest birds.

Stegosaurus, which lived 150 million years ago in the modern American states of Oklahoma, Colorado, Wyoming and Utah, could reach a length of 9 m. However, the brain of this creature was no larger in size than walnut, and his weight was only 70g, which was only 0.002% of the mass of his entire body, which averaged 3.3 tons.

If you think that we have told everything about dinosaurs, then this is not so. In fact, open questions and interesting facts there is a lot more about these ancient creatures.

Recently, scientists found the remains of the largest creature that has ever walked on our planet. They were discovered by accident - an Argentine farmer came across dinosaur fossils in the desert. And he addressed the news of the find to the Paleontological University of Buenos Aires. Further excavations were carried out by paleontologists José Luis Carballido and Diego Paul.

Not afraid of anyone

According to rough estimates, Dreadnoughtus schrani lived, and that is what the big dinosaur, about one hundred million years ago. In size it is ahead of itself big predator- Spinosaurus, and the largest sauropod - Argentinosaurus. Its size can be judged by the femurs giant size– Dreadnoughtus schrani was supposedly 20 meters tall and 40 meters long. The weight of the dinosaur is comparable to the weight of 14 elephants combined, and this is neither more nor less - 77 tons.

Paleontologists agree that this “newcomer” belongs to the titanosaurs, distinctive features which are long neck, and the same tail, and a small head. In the area where the remains of the dinosaur were found, millions of years ago there was a forest of trees 15 meters high. It was these trees that served as a source of food for animals.

During the excavations, scientists found the bones of almost the entire skeleton - the torso, tail, part of the neck, and all the limbs. We even managed to find a dinosaur tooth. All these finds make it possible to recreate the appearance of the largest dinosaur. In total, about 70% of the skeleton was found, which in itself is a rare success; usually no more than a third of all the bones of the skeleton can be found.

Scientists believe that the reason for their luck was several floods that occurred one after another. As a result of this natural disaster The dreadnought was buried quickly and entirely, where it has been preserved to this day. Jason Poole, a member of the excavation team, shared his delight at the fact that one after another the bones continued to be found.

Looking at this creation of nature, scientists were puzzled by the question - how could Dreadnoughtus schrani walk on such thin legs? Let's leave paleontologists to solve this mystery, especially since the dinosaur skeleton threw up another interesting detail. It turned out that, despite its impressive size, the largest dinosaur continued to grow until last day life. Therefore, Dreadnoughtus schrani did not die of old age.

While scientists argue about size, walking methods, feeding methods, place in the ecosystem and try to create a three-dimensional model of an animal that lived millions of years before us, let's remember the dinosaurs mentioned above.

Argentinosaurus

This herbivorous dinosaur lived in the south of modern America. He walked on four legs, had a long neck and the same tail. They usually lived in small herds of up to 20 individuals. This made it possible to protect themselves from attacks by predators.

New individuals of Argentinosaurs hatched from eggs. They had a small head and an underdeveloped jaw. Days were spent eating tree leaves. Most likely, in order to digest food better, Argentinosaurs were forced to swallow stones.

Sedentary dinosaurs had a tail endowed with deadly power. One blow and the enemy is literally broken in half. Just look at his skeleton!

Spinosaurus

The largest predator known in the world at the moment who have ever lived on our planet. The dinosaur got its name because of its dorsal spine, formed from high vertebral processes - in appearance it resembles a sail. Presumably, the largest dinosaur among predators was an excellent swimmer, and at the same time, was lazy - this lizard most likely spent most of its time lying on its side on the shore of a reservoir. The huge body required the same amount of energy.

He ate mainly fish, and did not disdain turtles, mollusks and amphibians. It was unlikely to be a worthy competitor to comparable dinosaurs - it lacked the necessary arsenal and skills, and for crocodiles it should have been dangerous.

He lived more than a hundred million years ago in northern Africa, where Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco are now located.

Where did the dinosaurs go?

Scientists have still not come to a consensus on the question of where the dinosaurs went. Some argue that dinosaurs did not become extinct, but evolved into birds; others blame the death of dinosaurs on harmless butterflies, which, due to their large numbers, left the dinosaurs to starve to death.

But the most popular version is the death of dinosaurs from the great activity of ancient volcanoes. During eruptions, volcanoes released enormous amounts of ash into the atmosphere, and this, in turn, led to climate change. The Yucatan meteorite that arrived on our planet put an end to the life of dinosaurs on Earth.

Until the nineteenth century, no one even suspected that dinosaurs once lived on Earth. Their remains were first found in 1822, bones were recovered from a quarry in Oxfordshire, England. The animal to which the remains belonged was called Megalosaurus, in other words “ big lizard" By the way, “dinosaur” means “terrible lizard.”

Since then, more than 800 fossil species of dinosaurs that have long been absent from Earth have been found and studied on the planet. Today it is already known for certain that some terrible lizards were ferocious predators, and some were completely harmless herbivores.

First find

In 1822, the discovery was made by Dr. Gideon Mantel and his wife. They found the remains of a herbivorous animal in England. The Mantels were traveling through Sussex and stopped near Cuckfield so that the doctor could examine a local patient. And Mrs. Mantel at that time wandered into a neighboring grove and found someone’s teeth there that were sticking out of the ground. The woman dug up her find and showed it to her husband.

The doctor himself was an avid collector of all kinds of fossils, but he had never seen such fossils before. Therefore, he sent the remains for examination to a French specialist he knew to find out who the jaw belonged to.

After examination, the expert concluded that the find was the upper front teeth of a rhinoceros. But Dr. Mantel did not believe his friend and gave the find to the London Museum at the Royal Surgical Society. There, the remains were matched with the teeth of a South American iguana, a species of lizard that still lives today. But the fossil was much larger than iguanas, however, the similarities were obvious. Therefore, Dr. Mantel decided to give the unknown creature the name Iguanodon, which means “iguana tooth.”

For five years, Dr. Mantel persistently searched for other remains of the unknown iguanodon. And in the end, he managed to find parts of the animal’s skeleton, on the basis of which a life-size model of the iguanodon was created. It was later put on public display. Only in 1878 did it become clear that the appearance of the huge animal had been reconstructed completely incorrectly. That year, miners found a large pit in one of the Belgian mines, where 31 iguanodons fell at once, millions of years ago. The skeletons found allowed scientists to create an almost exact model of the dinosaur.

Dinner inside a dinosaur

Even earlier, in 1851, an exhibition of life-size models of various dinosaurs opened in London. Appearance animals was created on the basis of fossil remains, including iguanodons, which were reconstructed from bones from the Mantel collection. But then the dinosaur was depicted on four legs, and the horn was on its nose. But in fact the bone turned out to be part of a paw.

Sea dinosaurs

By the way, before the opening of the exhibition, a dinner party was held inside the iguanodon. 21 scientists and several guests in the belly of the animal raised their glasses in honor of the new birth of the prehistoric monster. Now there is not a single dinosaur on Earth. However, scientists are constantly finding the remains of the most ancient inhabitants of the planet. Until today, paleontologists have been able to describe more than five hundred genera and more than a thousand species of ancient animals.

Amphicelia

However, no one can say for sure which dinosaur is the largest. But some scientists believe that the largest may be Amphicelia from the genus of herbivores. This animal was described from a fragment of a vertebra, which later collapsed and has not survived to this day. According to experts, the amphicelia reached 60 meters in length, its mass was 155 tons. It turns out that the dinosaur was almost twice the size of the blue whale. But Amphicelia was not the most massive; according to some sources, Bruchaikaiosaurus weighed up to 200 tons.

Part of the amphicelia vertebra was found by Oramen Lusas, who led excavations in the state of Colorado in the USA. The young man worked for the anatomist, paleontologist, ichthyologist and herpetologist Edward Cope, whom he called a genius. It was thanks to him that the world learned about thousands of different vertebrates that once lived on Earth. As for the discovery of a fragment of an amphicelia vertebra, it was about one and a half meters high. Cope decided that during life he was about 1.8 meters, according to modern estimates and even more - about 2.7 meters.

Futalognosaurus

More recently, in 2007, other remains were found in the province of Neuquén in Argentina. According to scientists, they fully claim to be the remains of the largest dinosaur in history - Futalognokosaurus. According to paleontologists, the ancient living creatures belong to the group of titanosaurs, which lived approximately 87 million years ago.

The name of the animal comes from the words futa (or giant) and lognko (or chief) from the language of the Araucan Indians, who lived in Chile and Argentina. The length of the dinosaur was approximately 32-34 meters, the giant weighed about 80 tons. The first remains were found in 2000 on the shores of Lake Barreales, and over the next seven years, scientists extracted from the ground the bones of the back, neck, legs and tail of Futalognosaurus.

Sea monster

We found a huge monster underwater. Researchers from the Spanish United Paleontological Society announced the discovery of the largest European dinosaur. The parameters of the finds turned out to be truly impressive, enough to shake the imagination of any person. Representatives of the new species, which were named Turiasaurus riodevensis, grew to 37 meters in length. And the mass of the monster could be, according to the most conservative estimates, 48 ​​tons. For comparison, that's seven modern elephants. Judging by the characteristics, this living creature can be called one of the most large dinosaurs in the world. But larger than it, however, may be the Argentinosaurus.

The most big dinosaurs

The creature lived in Jurassic period approximately 150 million years ago in what is now Europe. The remains were found in Spain. As experts say, Turiasaurus riodevensis belongs to a subclass of the saurian order, namely sauropods.

Experts noted that the dinosaur's limbs and skeletal structure are more primitive than those of other giant species. By studying the structure of the teeth, scientists concluded that the giants were herbivores. The remains turned out to be very similar to those found in Portugal, England and France. This suggests that Turiasaurus riodevensis themselves or their related species once lived in different territories European continent.
Subscribe to our channel in Yandex.Zen