Titanosaur
"Titanic reptile" (Osborn, 1905)
"tie-tan-oh-saw"
The
Titanosaur family included the biggest land animals ever; the Early Cretaceous
Titanosaurs, of what is now China, were about 60 feet long. Much of this length was neck and tail.
Titanosaurs were quite typical sauropods, a group of dinosaurs that include the famous
Diplodocus and
Brachiosaurus.
Hollowed-out bones and strong, pillar-like legs supported the massive bodies of these land-living herbivores. All sauropods were vegetarians, and
Titanosaurs were no exception. Their pencil-shaped teeth, concentrated at the front of their mouths, were ideal for snipping off vegetation.
Titanosaurs did not chew their food. Instead it was quickly swallowed and digested in their massive guts. Scientists in studying their bones structure concluded that many of the long-necked sauropods fed near to the ground.
Because fossilized
Titanosaur nests were not as carefuly arranged a other dinosaurs', scientists believe they just buried the eggs with their spade-like claws on the hind feet and left them to hatch on their own. Unlike the hind feet, the front feet had lost their claws entirely; in fact they do not have finger bones;
Titanosaurs walked on their knuckles!
Titanosaurs were one of the most successful types of dinosaurs. They survived right up to the K/T boundary, becoming extinct along with the last of the dinosaurs.
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Size: 60 ft long
