Dino Got Back

[CalMeacham]

The Scientific name of this sauropod translates as “Thunder Thighs”

Thunder Thighs: New Dinosaur Had a Colossal Kick

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20110223/sc_livescience/thunderthighsnewdinosaurhadacolossalkick

Anyone who’s ever thought they had a big butt had nothing on a dinosaur literally named “thunder thighs.”

Among the sauropods, the largest creatures to have ever walked the Earth, Brontomerus — “thunder thighs” in Greek — probably had the biggest thighs of them all, scientists revealed. Its unusually powerful back legs might have been used for super-kicks against rivals or would-be predators, they added.

[TriPolar]

A moment on the lips…

[lieu]

Yeah but boy could they cook!

[CalMeacham]

Bump

[blondebear]

Its unusually powerful back legs might have been used for super-kicks

Super kicks! Yeah…like that makes up for having GIGANTIC, HUMONGOUS thighs. They probably went extinct because they couldn’t get any dates.

[TriPolar]

Heavier legs to kick with doesn’t make a lot of sense for an animal already that large. An increase in weight under the hips may indicate this guy could assume a bipedal stance more readily than some of his cousins.

[billfish678]

@TriPolar

Heavier legs to kick with doesn’t make a lot of sense for an animal already that large. An increase in weight under the hips may indicate this guy could assume a bipedal stance more readily than some of his cousins.

Bi dinos?

I’ll be in my swamp…

[Sailboat]

This leaped out at me (so to speak):

Two specimens were discovered, an adult and a juvenile, and paleontologists conjecture that the larger specimen was the mother of the younger — sauropods are often found in what seem to have been family groups.

I’ve seen a recent science program on dinosaurs, a major theme of which was “Sauropods laid many, many eggs and did not care for their young. Sauropod young grew very fast to try to become so large predators would leave them alone, but the egg-laying strategy was akin to that used by some kinds of sea life – release thousands of offspring, invest nothing in caring for them, and hope one or two survive predation to reach adulthood.”

The program claimed that they did form herds, but AFTER reaching adult size.

That seems precisely contradictory to the quote from the article.

[TriPolar]

There are a lot of dinos classified as sauropods and there was a lot of variance in shape and size. Some may have birthed live offspring, and we hardly know anything about their reproductive habits. Whenever you see a positive assertion about dinosaurs that isn’t a description of its skeleton, take it with a grain of salt.