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| Dinosaur Facts |  |
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All dinosaurs walked on their toes. In 1822, Mary Ann Mantell of Sussex, England became the first person in history to discover a dinosaur fossil while correctly identifying it as something that was a part of a large reptile; earlier discoveries were identified as giant men, dragons, and other such large, dead things. However, her husband, Dr. Gideon Mantell, took credit for the discovery and identified the teeth that she found as part of an Iguanodon. Later, he wrongfully identified a body part as a horn, which turned out to be part of the creature's thumb. There were no marine dinosaurs and no flying dinosaurs. Pterosaurs, which were winged cousins of dinosaurs, were the first vertebrates to take to the air. The vertebrae of Seismosaurus suggests that it may have been 120 feet long. Reptiles were responsible for such body part innovations as fur, feathers, claws, differentiated teeth, water impervious skin, water impervious eggs, and the penis. Edward Drinker Cope, in his rush to beat Othniel Marsh as the collector and publisher of the most dinosaurs, reconstructed one dinosaur so that its head was placed at the end of its tail instead of its rightful place on its neck. Unsympathetic colleagues suggested that it be named "Strepsisaurus" ("twisted lizard"). Stress fractures in some dinosaur vertebrae may have been caused by the weight load of copulation. The first dinosaur to be the subject of a tavern song was Diplodocus due to the fact that tychoon Andrew Carnegie gave a replica of the animal to King Edward VII. The tune, which was popular around the turn of the century, went:
The horned dinosaur Torosaurus had the longest skull of any land-living animal--it was 9 feet long. The largest dinosaur egg discovered so far belonged to the Hypselosaurus. With a liquid capacity of alnost 6 pints, the egg measures 1 foot long by 10 inches wide. The bones of the Pterosaur were hollow, even thinner for their size that most modern bird bones. Most published species of dinosaurs have been published within the last 20 years.
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Mr. Smarty Pants gets his information from books, magazines, newspapers, the internet, radio, and television. He also includes facts he has overheard at parties. All contents--Copyright 2008 Smarty Pants Productions |
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