Sauropod Dinosaur Egg Fossil

$70.00

Sauropods or Diplodocus had tiny heads, massive bodies, and most had long tails. Their hind legs were thick, straight, and powerful, ending in club-like feet with five toes.

Description

Sauropod Dinosaur Egg Fossil Replica measures 5.3×4.7 inches. Sauropod Dinosaur Egg Fossil is museum quality polyurethane cast. Made in USA. Diplodocus is the scientific name. Fossil is Embedded in 7×6 in base. Our precise egg can be used as a teaching tool, museum egg exhibit, home décor egg, or office décor egg.

Sauropods or Diplodocus were herbivorous (plant-eating), usually quite long-necked quadrupeds (four-legged), often with spatulate (spatula-shaped: broad at the tip, narrow at the neck) teeth.

Sauropods or Diplodocus had tiny heads, massive bodies, and most had long tails. Their hind legs were thick, straight, and powerful, ending in club-like feet with five toes, though only the inner three (or in some cases four) bore claws.

Sauropods or Diplodocus forelimbs were rather more slender and typically ended in pillar-like hands built for supporting weight; often only the thumb bore a claw.

Many illustrations of sauropods in the flesh miss these facts, inaccurately depicting sauropods with hooves capping the claw-less digits of the feet, or more than three claws or hooves on the hands. The proximal caudal vertebrae are extremely diagnostic for sauropods.

The oldest known unequivocal sauropod dinosaurs are known from the Early Jurassic. Isanosaurus and Antetonitrus were originally described as Triassic sauropods, but their age, and in the case of Antetonitrus also its sauropod status, were subsequently questioned. Sauropod like sauropodomorph tracks from the Fleming Fjord Formation (Greenland) might, however, indicate the occurrence of the group in the Late Triassic.

By the Late Jurassic (150 million years ago), sauropods had become widespread (especially the diplodocids and brachiosaurids).

By the Late Cretaceous, one group of sauropods or Diplodocus, the titanosaurs, had replaced all others and had a near global distribution. However, as with all other non-avian dinosaurs alive at the time, the titanosaurs died out in the Cretaceous, Paleogene extinction event. Fossilized remains of sauropods have been found on every continent, including Antarctica.

The name Sauropoda was coined by O.C. Marsh in 1878, and is derived from Greek, meaning “lizard foot”. Sauropods are one of the most recognizable groups of dinosaurs, and have become a fixture in popular culture due to their impressive size.

Complete sauropod or Diplodocus fossil finds are rare. Many species, especially the largest, are known only from isolated and disarticulated bones. Many near-complete specimens lack heads, tail tips and limbs.

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Additional information

Weight 2.9 lbs
Dimensions 5.3 × 4.7 in
Sauropod Facts

Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Dinosauria
Clade: Saurischia
Suborder: †Sauropodomorpha
Clade: †Anchisauria
Clade: †Sauropoda