um, dinosaurs were big
We're studying dinosaurs in school. Yesterday we talked about how big they were, and I meant to write about that (it was one of those things I forgot), but no matter: today we did how much they weighed, so I can combine the two into one convenient post.
And the verdict is: they were big. For example, I tend to think of Tricerotops as being about the size of a rhinocerous, but no: they were both twice as long and twice as heavy (30 feet and 6 tons) as a representative of the largest rhino species alive today. We got a graphic representation of the size of these creatures when Mrs. Beaty projected their outlines, life-sized, onto the auditorium wall; it was really something to see the Tyrannasaurus's head up their at the ceiling, some forty or fifty feet up. And as for weight, we have the Supersaurus which, in addition to having like the dumbest name in the dinosaur world, aso weighed maybe 80 tons, which is pretty hefty. In class we compared the weights of various dinosaurs to that of elephants, but doing some research now I find that we may have gotten the weight of a modern elephant completely wrong. Oh well, good thing the kids aren't paying attention.
And then there's little Saltopus, which only weighed 2 pounds (the size of a chicken, were told), and cute little Protoceratops which, at only 6 feet in length, was positively tiny for a herbivorus dinosaur. Goes to show you that even in dinosaurs it takes all kinds, and size isn't everything.