A Diplodocus herd
Sauropods are long-necked dinosaurs from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. In the Jurassic, the main family of Sauropods were Diplodocids, and in the Cretaceous the main group were the Titanosaurs.
Features[]
Sauropods have a few distinguishing characteristics:
- Most have long necks with small heads.
- Most have long, whip-like tails.
- They only had teeth at the front of the mouth, designed for raking leaves.
- They all swallowed gastroliths to grind up food.
- Most of them were very big.
Species[]
Different species of Sauropod include:
Seismosaurus
Domeykosaurus
Diet[]
All Sauropods were herbivorous. They used their long necks to reach vegetation without moving very far, or to reach high up into the trees for plants other dinosaurs couldn't reach.
Defences[]
Most Sauropods' defence was to grow massive. Smaller Sauropods had osteoderms (protective scutes) over their bodies. Another defence for Sauropods was a whip-like tail.
Size[]
Sauropods can be anything from 6-40 metres long, and weigh from 2-130 tonnes.
Records[]
The Sauropod with the longest neck was Mamenchisaurus.
The longest Sauropod was Supersaurus.
The tallest Sauropod was Sauroposeidon.
The heaviest Sauropod was Argentinosaurus
Gallery[]
