And now for my favourite dinosaurs ever
Armour plated, Jurassic tank with a brain the size of a walnut? Yes please. Stegosarus was a herbivore who knew how to look after itself, what with the giant-ass spikes on the end of his tail. Colouration has been under debate but it's assumed that it was anywhere from a dull forest green to a sandy brown, given the propensity to stay within wooded areas. Â They hung out in the U.S and China and is a "bird hipped" dinosaur, which lends credence to the fact that birds were a dinosaur evolution.Â
Aside from the aforementioned giant ass spikes, it had a series of bone plates that acted like chainmail around it's neck, and travelled in family groups of up to fifteen. They were around twelve meters long and weighed seven tonnes, which made them a really, really big pretty peacock. Scientists have been debating what the plates on it's back were used for, and most seem to think display but it could also be heat dispersal or armour, given the propensity for a lot of Jurassic carnivores to play the let's leap on your back game.
And then there's this dude! Possessing the dubious title of the carnivore with the smallest arms ever (Smaller than a T-Rex, there was no real need for them!), the Carnotarus lived in the middle Cretaceous, anywhere from 113 to 91 million years ago. The males had horns above their eyes, both for fighting purposes with other males and to attract females, who seemed to think a horny dude was okay. It was about twenty five feet long, six feet tall at the hips and weighed about a tonne. Bugger was fast for a huge monster and spent a lot of time pouncing on Saltasarus and eating it because delicious herbivore get in my belly. Like all major carnivores it had problems with calcium deposits in it's joints, which meant that as it got older it would have a hard time running/jumping/getting back up if it fell. The teeth were massive and made for ripping and tearing more than chewing, and their tiny arms meant they had to hold prey in place with one foot, like a flamingo.Â
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