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Edmontosaurus Hadrosaur Duckbill
Age: Late Cretaceous
Note: Edmontosaurus was
possibly the largest of the duck-billed hadrosaurs. It was a
little bigger than a T. rex and was probably a food source for
the large meat-eater. It walked on all four legs much of the
time, but it could also stand easily on its hind legs, as they
were much larger than its front legs. Edmontosaurus had on
average over 500 teeth and some had over 1,000! These were all
jammed together in what is called a dental battery. This
dinosaur could really chew up the tough plants on which it fed.
Edmontosaurus was originally described as Anatosaurus; for many
years the species annectens was attributed to the genus
Anatosaurus. Now both Anatosaurus and Claosaurus are known as
Edmontosaurus. Hadrosaurs were among the most common herbivores
of the late Cretaceous. Like other hadrosaurs, it had a beak
that was covered with a horny sheath. Excellent mummified
specimens of these dinosaurs have been found, adding a great
deal to the knowledge of dinosaur skin and musculature. When
first discovered, many researchers thought these dinosaurs would
have lived in the water due to the shape of their heads and the
fact that one mummified specimen seemed to have webbing on its
front feet. Later research has shown, however, that these
creatures lived primarily on coastal plains, floodplains and
river deltas. Their dental structure also supports a more
terrestrial lifestyle, as was perfectly suited for plants that
were found in forests near water, and not those that were found
in the water. Another interesting Edmontosaurus feature is that
the skin seemed to consist, at least partly, of horny plates -
good defense against glancing bites and blows from predators.
Discovered: Hell Creek Formation S. Dakota.
Eryops megacephalus (claw)
Age: Lower Permian ( 270 million years)
Discovered: Wichita basin, Texas
Cost: $75
(+ shipping)
Notes: Eryops
was a common, primitive amphibian that lived in swamps during
the Permian period. This meat-eater had a stout body with very
wide ribs, a strong spine, four short, strong legs, a short
tail, and a wide, elongated skull with many sharp teeth in
strong jaws. Its teeth had enamel with a folded pattern. Eryops
was about 5 feet (1.5 m) long, one of the largest land animals
of its time. Eryops may have been slow moving on land, but was
perhaps faster in the water. Some scientists have suggested that
Eryops may not have been able to run. Eryops was a swamp
dweller. Like all amphibians, Eryops had to live near the water
since amphibian eggs have no shells and must be laid in the
water (or in very damp areas) or they will dry out and die.
Also, it lost its gills as an adult.
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Giant Glyptodont (claw)
Age: Pleistocene
Discovered: Bolivia
Note: A Glyptodont
resembled a huge turtle but was more closely related to the
giant armadillo... They had bony helmets on their furry heads;
their bodies were covered by huge carapaces made of bony
hexagons bound together by collagen; the bases of their tails
were ringed with bone, and terminated in stiff bony sheaths.
Size: 2.8in/7.2cm
Cost: $75
(+ shipping)
Item#: giant-glyptodont-claw-c27-va
Gorgosaurus (claw)
Cost: $75
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Notes:
Gorgosaurus is considered by some scientists to be the same as
Albertosaurus. This dinosaur looked like a smaller, slightly
less muscular version of Tyrannosaurus. As an early member of
the tyrannosaur family, Gorgosaurus was the final design for the
large meat-eating dinosaurs. It had only two fingers on its
hands, which were at the end of short arms. It had long legs and
a wide skull with lots of power in its bite. Gorgosaurus was
named based on material that is now being disputed as requiring
a genus separate from Albertosaurus.
Item#: dino-gorgosaurus-claw-cl12-va
Hadrosaur (toe)
Age: late Cretaceous
Discovered: S. Dakota
Size: 3.1x2.4 in / 8x6 cm
Cost: $75
(+ shipping)
Notes:
Hadrosaurus was the second dinosaur named in North America and a
whole family of dinosaurs - hadrosaurs - was named after it. It
was the first duck-billed dinosaur found, and one of the first
on the East Coast of the U.S. It was a large plant-eater and is
often shown standing upright, although it actually would have
spent most of its time on all four legs. The original specimen
of Hadrosaurus was found in the Cretaceous marls of New Jersey
in 1858. Joseph Leidy, an anatomy professor from Philadelphia,
assembled the skeleton and named it. Hadrosaurus was large for a
hadrosaur and had a typical hadrosaur body. Its skull was
typical of non-crested hadrosaurs, except for a noticeable bump
on the nasal bones that created a resemblance to a prizefighter
with a broken nose. Hadrosaurus is sometimes erroneously used as
a generic name for hadrosaurs.
Item#: hadrosaur-toe-rf017-va
Iguanodon (thumb spike)
Age: Cretaceous
Discovered: N. Dakota
Cost: $75
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Notes: Sharp defensive weapon attached to the thumb of
a plant-eating dinosaur to use against large carnivores.
Description:
Iguanodon has become quite famous as a result of its starring
role in Dinosaur, but before that it helped people understand
what dinosaurs really looked like. It was one of the first
complete skeletons ever found. This allowed scientists who had
never seen a complete dinosaur, to figure out what it would have
looked like in life. In fact, the first time this common
dinosaur was found as just partial skeleton, scientists put its
thumb spike on its nose! This was only the second dinosaur to be
described, after Megalosaurus. Its teeth were discovered in the
early 1820's in England - these original fossils were
"rediscovered" in the British Museum in 1977. As nothing like it
had ever been described in scientific literature, the teeth of
this creature were a puzzle that an amateur paleontologist named
Gideon Mantell solved by comparing them to the teeth of living
animals. Mantell found that the teeth looked like those of a
modern iguana and named it Iguanodon. He speculated that it was
a huge extinct version of this modern reptile. It was in 1878 in
a coal mine in Belgium that 24 fairly complete and articulated
specimens were found. Although they were of a larger species,
they clearly showed what this creature looked like in life.
Item#: dino-iguanodon-thumb-spike-sh04-va
Megaraptor Claw(sculpture)
Age: Middle Cretaceous
Discovered: Argentina
Size: 15in/38cm (along curve)
Cost: $75
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Item#:dino-megaraptor-claw-mg14-va
Note: If this monster was
everything scientists think it was, it could have been the most
vicious predator ever. Megaraptor was like a giant Velociraptor
, larger even than Utahraptor that had a killing claw over 14
inches (36 cm) long! Add to that its sharp teeth, long powerful
arms and hands with huge claws and you have one fierce animal.
The trouble is, very little of this dinosaur has been found,
and it is a very recent discovery, so it may be some time
before we know for certain what it really looked like.
Discovered in 1997 in Argentina, Megaraptor was found
associated with the fossil remains of Unenlagia, a bird-like
dinosaur. There is some speculation that Megaraptor was the
adult version of Unenlagia, which is known from an apparently
juvenile specimen. Remains of a specimen similar to those of
the Megaraptor have also recently been found in China and await
study.
Nannotyrannus
Age: late Cretaceous
Discovered: Montana
Notes: An
apparent dwarf Tyrannosaur about a third of the size of its
larger cousin, the T-Rex.
Pachycephalosaurus (claw)
Age: upper Cretaceous
Discovered: Hall Creek Formation, S. Dakota
Cost: $75
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Notes: This
was a real bonehead. The skull of Pachycephalosaurus was 8
inches thick on top. For years, scientists thought it was used
primarily for head-butting contests, sort of like mountain goats
do today, but recent studies of the skeletons of related
dinosaurs show that its neck might have broken if it tried that.
A skeleton of the Pachycephalosaurus has never been found, so
most of what is known about it is only from the skull and its
close relatives. There are several strange characteristics, in
addition to its thick skull. It lived at the very end of the
dinosaur age, when most dinosaurs were fairly advanced, yet it
still had five fingers, a primitive characteristic. Also, the
shape of its teeth was somewhat primitive, similar to those of
the Stegosaurus which had lived over 100 million years earlier.
These were clearly plant-eater teeth, but it also had front
teeth that could have been used like a meat-eater.
Item#: dino-pachycephalosaurus-claw-cl14-va
Ornithomimus
Age:
Cretaceous Note:
Ornithomimus sparked the first discussions
in scientific circles that birds may have descended from
dinosaurs. Its name even means that it looks like a bird. A
whole family of dinosaurs is named after Ornithomimus, including
Struthiomimus and Gallimimus . They were all fast-running
meat-eaters with small heads, long legs and long tails. Their
heads were too small to eat larger creatures, so they probably
ate a lot of small animals like lizards, insects, and small
mammals. Ornithomimus is a very well known and commonly found
dinosaur. First discovered over 100 years ago, there are two and
possibly four species assigned to this genus. There is evidence
that this genus was one of the more evolutionarily advanced
members of its family. Much debate surrounds these creatures'
diet. Their small heads don't seem very threatening compared to
other theropods, and it has been variously suggested that they
were herbivorous, omnivorous, primarily eaters of eggs and soft
bodied creatures such as insects and lizards, and scavengers.
Saurornitholestes langstoni
Note:
Saurornitholestes was a small, lightly built dromaeosaurid. Its
skull shape suggests that it had a bigger brain than
Dromaeosaurus but a poorer sense of smell. Its small, sharp,
saw-edged teeth are also different from those of Dromaeosaurus.
Its hands were well designed for grasping and had small, strong,
sharp, curved claws.
Stenonychosaurus (claw)
Cost: $75
(+ shipping)
Notes: Among
the rarest of dinosaurian fossils are those of the smaller flesh
eaters. One of these, from 76-million-year-old sediments in
Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, is particularly interesting.
Stenonychosaurus was less than 3 m long, and weighed only 45 kg.
It was a biped, and could rotate its lower arm to grasp objects
with a three-fingered hand. The eyes were enormous, surpassing
in size those of most modern land animals. The brain was much
larger than in living reptiles and approached that of some
living birds and mammals in relative size. Stenonychosaurus
dinosaurs, which probably fed on primitive mammals, embody a
widespread tendency for the brain to increase in size through
the history of life.
Item#: dino-stenonychosaurus-claw-cl17-va
Struthiomimus
Age:
Cretaceous
Discovered:
Cretaceous Alberta
Note:
Struthiomimus was a speedy predator with long legs. It is called
an ostrich mimic because it probably moved like a modern
ostrich. Like other meat-eaters in its family, Struthiomimus had
no teeth. It had a very small head, long arms and long grasping
hands. Unfortunately, the Struthiomimus type specimen that was
found in 1902 was damaged very badly. Since that time, however,
a number of other specimens have been discovered, but none are
convincingly complete enough to resolve the ongoing debate of
whether this dinosaur should be classified as Ornithomimus.
Several specimens originally attached to this genus have been
reclassified to other genera. The diet of these dinosaurs has
been the subject of debate for a number of years. Since they
were toothless, various diet theories have been put forward. It
has been suggested that the hands and slight build of this
creature suggest that it ate mainly insects, but other
scientists are firm in their belief that Struthiomimus and its
family members were strictly carnivorous.
