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Smallosaurus

In the town of Goslar in northern Germany, some paleontologists have unearthed some “small” sauropods — at a mere 6m (20') long instead of the usual 26m (85').

Sauropods are “long-necked, small-headed plant-eaters” including the mythical Brachiosaurus, actually an Apatosaurus skeleton with a mismatched head.

These new variants (at “only” about triple your length) are “merely” lethally dangerous rather than awesomely colossal. They have many scientists excited because the collection includes animals of all ages (which can be compared to study growth), most of whom represent a dwarfed species (which allows dwarfism itself to be studied as well).

NatGeo has another interesting article on a sauropod (erketu ellisoni) with a 7.5m long neck. This reminds me of a Windows version of sauropodia — large, ornate, clumsy, probably crashed and got viruses — but in its own way, visually impressive.

Comments

Leon RJ Brooks said…
Sorry, forgot to mention that the small-o-saurs are also interesting because the fossils are found in marine sediments, but they're not traditionally regarded as marine animals.
12 June, 2006 09:00
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