Sauropelta
Sauropelta was an armoured dinosaur that looked like a walking tank. It had huge spikes on its neck and a long tail that made up half its body length. This plant-eater lived in North America during the Early Cretaceous period.21
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as long as 6 dogs nose to tail🍌as long as 33 bananas end to endas heavy as 100 dogs🍉as heavy as 400 watermelons🎒as heavy as 2.5 whole school classes of kids🐻❄️as heavy as 4 polar bears🏃could run 100 metres in 22 seconds (the fastest human needs 9.6)How big was Sauropelta compared to YOU?
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Fun facts
Sauropelta had two rows of large, pointed spines on each side of its neck. The spines pointed backwards and upwards, and their bases were fused together, which limited neck movement.2
Its body was covered in bony armor, including small nodules and larger conical scutes. Over the hips, the armor plates locked together tightly to form a 'sacral shield'.2
Sauropelta is one of the earliest known nodosaurids. Most of its fossils come from rocks that are about 108.5 million years old.2
The first Sauropelta fossils were collected by famous dinosaur hunter Barnum Brown in the 1930s. But the dinosaur was not named until 1970, when John Ostrom gave it the name Sauropelta.2
Sauropelta lived in forested floodplains near rivers. It ate conifers and cycads, since grasses had not yet evolved.2
A nearly complete skeleton with its armor still in place is on display at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.2
Most asked questions about Sauropelta
?How big was Sauropelta?
Sauropelta was about 5.2 to 6 metres (17 to 20 feet) long and weighed about 1.5 to 2 metric tons (1.7 to 2.2 short tons), about the same mass as a modern black rhinoceros.2
?Did Sauropelta have a tail club?
No, Sauropelta did not have a tail club. Nodosaurids like Sauropelta lacked the heavy tail clubs that ankylosaurids had.2
?What did Sauropelta eat?
Sauropelta was a herbivore that ate plants. It had leaf-shaped teeth for cutting plant material and a beak, and it browsed on conifers and cycads in forested floodplains.2
?When did Sauropelta live?
Sauropelta lived during the Early Cretaceous Period, about 108.5 million years ago. Most of its fossils come from rocks that are that age.2
?Where was Sauropelta found?
Sauropelta fossils have been found in the U.S. states of Wyoming, Montana, and possibly Utah. They come from the Cloverly Formation.2
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Myth buster
Myth: Sauropelta had a tail club like some other armoured dinosaurs.
Truth: Sauropelta was a nodosaurid, and nodosaurids did not have tail clubs. Instead, its tail had flat triangular plates pointing outwards.2
For dino experts
- Scientific name
- Sauropelta
- Named by
- Ostrom 19703
- Group
- Armoured dinos
- Family / clade
- Nodosauridae3
- Classification
- Ornithischia > Ankylosauria > Nodosauridae > Thyreophora3
- Age of the rocks
- 121 to 94 million years (Aptian / Cenomanian)3
- Rock formations
- Cloverly, Cedar Mountain, Wayan3
- Countries
- USA3
- Fossil records
- 34 in the Paleobiology Database3
- Discovery
- Barnum Brown collected the first fossils in the 1930s from Montana, USA. John Ostrom named the dinosaur Sauropelta in 1970, using specimens from both Brown's and his own expeditions.2
- Still debated
- Scientists are not sure if some large nodosaurid fossils from Utah belong to Sauropelta or to a different, unnamed species.2
Where the facts come from
- Sauropelta | Natural History Museum (nhm.ac.uk)
- Sauropelta (en.wikipedia.org)
- Sauropelta in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.
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