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DINOSAUR ANATOMY AND BEHAVIOR |
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| General Anatomy | Size | Teeth | Herds, Packs | Offense | Defense | Reproduction, Nests & Eggs | Blood Pressure |
| Skeleton | Tails | Brains | Male or Female? | Skin | Diet | Locomotion | Life Span | Hot or Cold Blooded? |
Recently scientists have found that most dinosaur bones have growth
rings (called lines of arrested growth, abbreviated LAG) that may answer this question. These lines are only visible using a microscope. The bones have to be sliced into thin section and viewed with a polarized lens in the microscope. It's a bit like looking at the growth ring of trees to determine the age of a tree. Each year of growth leaves a trace in the bone (or tree trunk).
Another way to estimate life span is based on body size, the known life spans of modern-day animals, and the fact that large animals generally live longer lives than smaller ones. It has been estimated that the huge sauropods, like Apatosaurus, Brachiosaurus, Diplodocus, and Supersaurus lived to be roughly 100 years old. Smaller dinosaurs probably lived shorter life spans.
Scientists have determined the following estimates:
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(Weight: 250+ kg) 15 years to reach adult size (Chinsamy, 1994).
References
Chimsamy, A. 1994. Dinosaur bone histology: implications and inferences; pp. 213-227 in G. D. Rosenberg and D. L. Wolberg (eds.), Dino Fest. The Paleontological Society, Department of Geological Sciences, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee.
Ricqlés, A. de. 1983. Cyclical growth in the long limb bones of a sauropod dinosaur. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 28:225-232.
Varricchio, D. V. 1993. Bone microstructure of the Upper Cretaceous theropod dinosaur Troodon formosus. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 13:99-104.
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DINOSAUR ANATOMY AND BEHAVIOR |
|
| General Anatomy | Size | Teeth | Herds, Packs | Offense | Defense | Reproduction, Nests & Eggs | Blood Pressure |
| Skeleton | Tails | Brains | Male or Female? | Skin | Diet | Locomotion | Life Span | Hot or Cold Blooded? |
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