Stegosauruses were generally 30 feet long and about 15 feet high. They generally weighed around 6000 pounds. They are very identifiable by the large shield shaped plates coming out of his back. The plates stagger from the left side of the dinosaur’s body to the right side. There were blood vessels located if the shield shaped plates on the dinosaur’s back. These plates were intended to dissipate heat from the core of the animal. The Stegosaurus is a very large animal with a high arched back (the plates protrude from the top). The size of the stegosaurus’s head and brain is very small. The stegosaurus had very stocky feet.
The stegosaurus was a plant eating animal. It would fend off other predators with the spikes attached to the end of its tail. Because of the size of the animal and the stocky legs that it had the stegosaurus could not run very quickly. The stride of the animal would be very small. The stegosaurus would have to eat lots of vegetation to get its daily filling when concerned with the size of the animal. Stegosauruses likely traveled in packs.
The stegosaurus lived in the Jurassic period. This was 145 to 155 million years ago. Fossils have been found throughout Central United States (Colorado, Utah, Wyoming) and the only footprint came from Australia.
Did you know?
The only set of Stegosaurus footprints were stolen from Australia.
It is rumored that the stegosaurus had a second brain in the tail region of the animal to control the reflexes in the rear of the dinosaur.
The size of the front brain in the stegosaurus was roughly the size of a walnut
Species: S. Stenops