The Washington Post (newspaper)/1912/Was Most Grotesque Animal

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Was Most Grotesque Animal

STEGOSAUR, WHO LIVED IN UTAH AGES AGO, IS A FREAK OF NATURE.

[Popular Mechanics.]

HAT is believed by paleontologists to be an important find of hitherto undiscovered species and genera of prehistoric land reptiles has been made by a research party sent out by the Carnegie Museum of Pittsburg, Penn. Twelve fossils or skeletons of dinosaurs, among them two complete brontosauru—the largest animals that have ever lived—were unearthed from the side of a cliff nine miles north of Jansen, Utah, in what was, in distant ages, a river; as the cobbles, mussel shells and sand environing the bones showed. Besides these specimens of the extinct brontosaurus fossil remains of several stegosaurus specimens were also brought to light. These are very rare. The stegosaurus was the most grotesque animal that ever existed.

Incomplete remains of a giant diplodocus, like the famous one in the Carnegie Museum, were found with the foregoing.

The research party was in charge of Earl Douglass, of the Museum staff, one of the men attached to the paleontological department. The party has been in the field for a considerable time, but it is decidedly slow work excavating fossils, as the greatest care must be exercised lest the rocks in which the remains are imbedded be cracked or injured. Then, when the fossils are cut away, there is an immense amount of tedious labor cleaning and assembling them. After that they must be carefully compared with existing specimens to determine whether they form a new genus or species. For these reasons scientists do not know absolutely whether the fossils discovered by the Carnegie Museum men represent hitherto undiscovered specimens. When the rocks bearing the find arrive in Pittsburg this question will be determined.

The skeletons of the strange monsters belong to what are known as sauropoda dinosauria. Sauropoda is a suborder of the herbivorous dinosaurs or land reptiles. At first these sauropoda were carnivorous—that is, flesh-eating animals—but later became herbivorous or herb-eating. The stegosaurus or stegosaurus ungulatus (the ungulata being hoof-footed animals) is always found in Wyoming, in the rocks of certain geological periods. It was a terrestrial reptile, frequenting the huge luxuriant forests prevalent in those days of four million years ago, and browsed on tender vegetation, of which the forests were full.

Its most remarkable feature is the double line of large bones sticking up on the middle of its back, and with which it defended itself against its ferocious carnivorous enemies like the allosaurus. Its tail was armed with spike-like projections, with which it impaled its assailants. It fought by presenting its tail and back to its foes, cutting and slashing with those terrible leaf-like bones on its back and those bony daggers on its tail. Scientists say it was a migrant from Europe.

The brontosaurus often attained a length of 80 feet, but it had a smal head. Its neck and tail were short. Like the stegosaurus, it lived by eating succulent herbs. It had powerful legs, 10 feet or so in length.