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Stegosaurus is easily one of the best known dinosaurs and is recognized all over the world. It is the largest and most famous member of the stegosaur family. It roamed the open plains of the Late Jurassic Period in what is now North America. The plates along its back, its small head and spiked tail make it a peculiar and unique dinosaur. This plant-eater evolved to find its food in the low-growing plants of the late Jurassic. The spikes on its tail would have made a powerful weapon against any hungry predators.
Stegosaurus is often called the dumbest dinosaur because of its incredibly small brain. In fact, most scientists originally believed that its brain was too small to control such a large creature and that it used an auxiliary "brain" located above its rear legs to help control its movements. This was not actually a brain, but a bundle of nerves that helped relay information from its real brain. Its brain was once thought to have been the size of a walnut, but CAT-scans proved that it was actually the size of a kitten.
Most fascinating to people are the plates along its back. There has been a great deal of debate about their use and arrangement. The plates were up to 2-feet tall and 2-feet wide (0.6 meters). The most prevalent theory is that they were used for cooling or heating the animal. A more recent theory, however, suggests that they could have been used as a display during courtship and that they may have been brightly colored. It is also possible that they could move up and down, perhaps to intimidate predators.
The spikes on its tail are also the subjects of some controversy. For years, every model of Stegosaurus showed it with the spikes sticking up into the air. It is only since the 1990s that it has become accepted that these spikes stuck out horizontal to the ground, which would have been a potent defensive weapon when swung at a hunter.[1]
Stegosaurus would have lived in family groups and herds, moving slowly through forests while eating the low-growing plants. Its front legs were considerably shorter than it's hind legs, making it adapted to nibbling the plants closest to the ground. Stegosaurus is the namesake for a large family of dinosaurs whose members were found all over the world.
The Stegosaurus (its code name "Stego") was a peaceful herbivore and probably roamed the prehistoric highlands in herds that size from small to large numbers, grazing on low ground plants. An average Stegosaurus was about the size of an elephant, standing about 11 feet tall. It had a very low intelligence (its brain was the size of a kitten). The bony plates on it's back may have served a dual purpose of a body temperature regulation and protection from large flesh-eating predators.[2] Different species varied in the number of plates on their back.
Jurassic Park[]
InGen created a herd of four stegosaurs in a territory of Isla Nublar called Stegosaur South. This territory was probably located at the southern tip of the island, in the more volcanic region. Before the InGen Incident two Stegosaurus died from eating Melia azedarach and many fall ill from the plant.
It is shown in the chapter "The Tour" that more stegosaurs, as well as more Triceratops and a new dinosaur called "Coelurosaurus", were going to be hatched for the park from eggs in the hatchery.
The creature is encountered in the chapter "Stegosaurus". Donald Gennaro's inspection team arrives at the location after they had seen the Saurapod Swamp. The team leaves the Land cruisers to inspect a sick stegosaur. The creature is described as: "twenty feet long, with a huge bulky body and vertical armor plates along its back. The tail had dangerous-looking 3 foot spikes. But the neck tapered to an absurdly small head with a stupid gaze, like a very dumb horse".[3] The animal smells and pants for breath, because the current atmosphere has a lower oxygen level (21%) than in Mesozoic times (27%). Alan Grant finds raptor egg fragments within the Stego's range.
Gerry Harding tells the team that the stegosaurs make a fixed route through their territory which takes a week. One in six weeks the animals get blisters. The team discovers later that the animals get sick because once in 6 weeks the animals swallow stones which they use as gastroliths, while they do this they also swallow the berries of the poisonous Melia azedarach.
Dennis Nedry stole a Stegosaurus embryo from the Cryo Labs.
When Tim Murphy climbs out of the tree (after the T. rex attack) a Stegosaurus is walking by. The creature behaves/moves like a large tortoise. He describes it as being stupid, and he easily scares it off by throwing a rock.[4]
By the end of the novel, only 1 remains and is seen on one of the monitors fighting with the young Tyrannosaurus rex. The animal was likely killed in the Napalm Bombing.
The Lost World[]
Stegosaurus is first seen by the Site B river with the other dinosaur herds. There is a single, solitary stegosaur that is seen by the river and it is quite possibly the only Stegosaurus that is seen in the entire novel.
After Sarah Harding regained consciousness after pulling herself up onto the shore of Site B, she discovered that a stegosaur had been licking her face as she was unconscious. The stegosaur's dark-blue tongue was rough like sandpaper and its saliva smelled sweet, like fermenting African beer. She had first mistaken it for a horse, it had dull eyes and soft eyelashes, but then she discovered that the head was too narrow and the snout was too tapered. The Stegosaurus, she described, had a small head, a surprisingly thick neck, a huge and heavy lumbering body, with a double row of pentagonal plates running along the crest of the back and a dragging tail with spikes in it. At first, she thought it was a trick or a hoax. Quickly looking for a seam or mechanical motion, she soon found out it was the real creature. The skin of the Stegosaurus had a pebbled texture, not scaly like a reptile's, but more like the skin of a rhino or of a hairless warthog. Like Tim Murphy in the first novel, she found it also had a peaceful, but ignorant. She deduced from her observations that the stegosaur was warm-blooded based on its quick movements and purple tongue.
References[]
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| Jurassic Park (novel) Animals |
|---|
| Apatosaurus • Cearadactylus • Dilophosaurus • Dryosaurus • Euoplocephalus • Hadrosaurus • Maiasaura • Meganeura • Microceratus • Nanosaurus • Procompsognathus • Stegosaurus • Styracosaurus • Triceratops • Tyrannosaurus rex • Velociraptor |
| The Lost World Dinosaurs |
|---|
| Apatosaurus • Carnotaurus • Dryosaurus • Gallimimus • Hypsilophodon • Maiasaura • Mussaurus • Ornitholestes • Pachycephalosaurus • Parasaurolophus • Procompsognathus • Stegosaurus • Triceratops • Tyrannosaurus rex • Velociraptor |