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Course: American Museum of Natural History > Unit 1
Lesson 2: How do scientists study dinosaurs?- Where in the world did dinosaurs live?
- Where in the world did dinosaurs live?
- Did dinosaurs travel in herds or packs?
- Did dinosaurs travel in herds or packs?
- How fast were dinosaurs?
- Were dinosaurs warm-blooded?
- Were dinosaurs warm-blooded?
- How fast did dinosaurs grow, and how long did they live?
- How fast did dinosaurs grow, and how long did they live?
- What was dinosaur skin like?
- What color were extinct dinosaurs?
- What color were extinct dinosaurs?
- What were the biggest and smallest dinosaurs?
- Did dinosaurs fight?
- How did dinosaurs reproduce?
- How intelligent were dinosaurs?
- New research points to dinosaurs' colorful past
- New dinosaur research: Microraptor's feather color revealed
- Quiz: How do scientists study dinosaurs?
- Exploration Questions: How do scientists study dinosaurs?
- Answers to Exploration Questions: How do scientists study dinosaurs?
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What were the biggest and smallest dinosaurs?
There's little doubt that the largest animals ever to live on land were sauropods, which includes Apatosaurus (formerly "Brontosaurus"), Diplodocus, and Brachiosaurus. But deciding which was the largest depends on what one means—longest or heaviest? Based on fairly complete skeletons, the sauropods Argentinosaurus and Seismosaurus, which were up to 50 meters long, are the longest dinosaurs yet discovered.
Among dinosaurs that aren't birds, or non-avian dinosaurs, the Compsognathus longus, an Early Jurassic, chicken-sized meat-eater from Western Europe is the smallest yet discovered. It measures only 70 centimeters long, including the tail, and probably weighed about three kilograms. Created by American Museum of Natural History.
Among dinosaurs that aren't birds, or non-avian dinosaurs, the Compsognathus longus, an Early Jurassic, chicken-sized meat-eater from Western Europe is the smallest yet discovered. It measures only 70 centimeters long, including the tail, and probably weighed about three kilograms. Created by American Museum of Natural History.
Want to join the conversation?
- What is the medium size for a dinosaur.(12 votes)
- The biggest dinos were the size of a school about 7 stories high and half a football field long The smallest were the size of a chicken.The average dinosaur was as big as a school bus.(1 vote)
- Why isn't the name "Brontosaurus" valid anymore?(2 votes)
- It's to do with how organisms are scientifically named - the name in the first officially published description is the one that sticks. Apatosaurus was named and described, and then a short while later another description was published for Brontosaurus, which was thought to be a different dinosaur. They turned out to be the same thing, and since the name Apatosaurus was published first, Brontosaurus became invalid. Unfortunately, it took a long time for non-palaeontologists to realise and 'Brontosaurus' because much more famous :)(3 votes)
- Why do they name them Brontosaurus?(1 vote)
- what does non-avian means?(1 vote)
Video transcript
The biggest dinosaurs were, of
course, these long neck creatures known technically as the sauropods, the famous apatosaurus, used to use the term brontosaurus but that's no longer an official name in the
scientific lineature, although it's a very famous name, thunder lizard it means. As far as the traditional extinct dinosaurs, the
smallest animals are close bird relatives, probably in the group troodontidae which were pigeon sized that we found
remains of in northeastern China. One thing about small animals is that they
preserve much more poorly in the fossil record than
large animals do so that our record is highly skewed toward larger sorts of
animals as fossils and the small ones just quickly become decomposed or abraded or eaten and things like that, and don't make very good fossils so we know nothing
about them.