Word: apatosaurus
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...dinosaur bones have not yet been fully analyzed, but they appear to belong to early prosauropods, small herbivores that are most likely the ancestors of the giant Apatosaurus (once known as Brontosaurus). Says Flynn of the little beasts: "I like to think of them being somewhat like kangaroos. They were similar in size, and while they didn't hop, they probably walked about on four legs and stood up on two legs to feed." Most of the other fossils come from rhynchosaurs (parrot-beaked reptiles). The rest are cynodonts, cold-blooded, reptile-like animals--the ancestors of modern mammals...
...sure what sort of dinosaur laid them. After examining the bones and distinctively shaped teeth of the fragmented embryos, some of which were close to hatching when they died, the researchers firmly identified them as a type of sauropod, kin to the familiar Brontosaurus (more accurately known as Apatosaurus) of comic-book fame. Had they survived, they would have been about 15 in. long at birth--"about the size of a small poodle," says Chiappe--but 40 ft. to 50 ft. from the tips of their giraffe-like necks to the ends of their long, ground-hugging tails in adulthood...
...more degrees than a thermometer, including a doctorate in physics from Princeton. With a fast and exuberant laugh, he has a passion for subjects ranging from technology (he heads Microsoft's advanced-research group) to dinosaurs (he's about to publish a paper on the aerodynamics of the apatosaurus tail) to cooking. He sometimes moonlights as a chef at Rover's, a French restaurant in Seattle...
Take sauropods, for example, the four-legged, long-necked giants that flourished in the Jurassic, the middle period of the dinosaurs' reign, which lasted from 208 million to 144 million years ago. These largest of all dinosaurs include Brontosaurus (an out-of-favor name these days: call them Apatosaurus, or risk correction by a knowledgeable six-year-old). They evidently used their spoon-shaped and pencil-shaped teeth to bite off leaves and twigs, relying, like many modern birds, on gizzard stones to do the actual chewing. Horned dinosaurs like Triceratops, which lived toward the end of the dinosaur...
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