The Biggest Dinosaurs Of All Time

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Dinosaurs are one of the biggest land-dwelling animals to ever exist on Earth. When you picture a dinosaur, you might imagine a 13-meter long T. rex or a Titanosaur the size of an airplane. But the first dinosaurs would have only come up to your knee. It turns out that sauropods, like Brontosaurus, developed special adaptations that allowed them to tower over the competition.

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Following is a transcript of the video:
Just how big did the dinosaurs get? Meet the world’s first dinosaur. No, down here! Eoraptor would’ve only come up to about your knees. In fact, most early Triassic dinosaurs were on the shrimpy side. Including predators, like the fierce, mule-sized Coelophysis.

But, after volcanic eruptions took out their competitors and ushered in the Jurassic Period, everything changed. New species exploded onto the scene. Like the plate-covered Scelidosaurus. And bigger herbivores meant bigger meat eaters, too.

Predators, like the Dilophosaurus, got to be 6 meters long! But they were no match for the real giants of the era: prosauropods. Now, these leaf-eaters weren’t much bigger than a giraffe. On the inside, they looked like a bird. And it’s this anatomy that enabled prosauropods to evolve into the largest dinosaurs of all time.

So, let’s take a closer look. Specialized lungs and air sacs allowed them to take in more oxygen. And also made their skeletons lighter hollowing out bone into a sturdy, honeycomb structure. Millions of years of evolution later, you can see the difference.

Ornithischian dinosaurs like Triceratops and Stegosaurs, lacked these air sacs. And as a result most of them weren’t very big. While Triceratops and Stegosaurus grew up to 8 meters long bird-like theropods, like Tyrannosaurus, grew twice as large.

But it was the sauropods, like Brontosaurus, Diplodocus, and Brachiosaurus, who reached enormous proportions. Like the theropods, these titans used air sacs to breathe and had light, hollow bones.

But they had another reason for outgrowing everyone else at the time: survival. Their size was a great defense against predators. And the largest of the bunch, stood over 26 meters long, weighed 55 tons or more, and could reach several stories up with their long necks. Which came in handy for gathering enough food. After all, you can’t grow this big without a lot of energy.

In fact, Brontosaurus ate about 45 kilograms of leaves, stems, and twigs a day. But they couldn’t waste energy hunting around to find those veggies. Instead, they parked themselves in one spot for hours and used their long necks to graze up and down, stripping trees like a giant corn on the cob. And the more these animals sat around and ate, the bigger they became.

Tens of millions of years later, we see another birdlike dinosaur enter the stage: Titanosaurs. The largest dinosaurs in history. Dreadnoughtus, Patagotitan, and Argentinosaurus could stand over 20 meters long.

But of course, their height couldn’t save them from the asteroid strike. And there’s been nothing like them since at least on land, anyway.

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Business insider: Brontosaurus need 45kgs of food per day.
David Attenborough: Elephants need at least 100kgs of food daily to survive!

abrarmohammad

2:14 This has to be wrong. 45kg of plant food is way too little for a brontosaurus. Even a modern elephant eats about 200-300 kgs of plant food each day.

Sepp_Tember

parked themselves in one spot for more they sat around & ate, the bigger they became”
*sounds like us Americans*

WileyCylas

0:47 "they weren't much bigger than a giraffe..." it's twice the size XD 1:23 "most of them weren't very big" that's like 1, 200 pounds of armored flesh XD

christopherhall

0:42 DILOPHOSAURUS DID NOT HAVE CURVED CLAWS ON THEIR FEET

marielamartinez

Stop the madness
I got a heart attack when I saw the accuracy of those dinosaurs

JohnnyBravo

Edit: "Everything changed when the volcano attacked." This is a quote, I mixed together from a tv show called ATLA, and the clip shown from this video. Wowie. what I believe doesn't matter in this context. this was all just a play on words, from this YouTube video and a cartoon TV show.<3

dairyfund

0:41 Dilophosaurus didn’t have the killing claws on its feet, and was at most 7 meters long.
0:46 “Prosauropods” evolved during the Triassic, not the Jurassic.
1:29 Triceratops and Stegosaurus were closer to 9 meters long.
1:59 The longest sauropods grew over 30 meters.
2:50 Dreadnoughtus really wasn’t as big as other Titanosaurs, maybe in weight not in actual size. It was only to 25 meters long, while Argentinosaurus and Patagotitan at both around 35 meters. Dreadnoughtus wasn’t even in the top 10 longest sauropods.
2:58 None of those specific sauropods (except maybe Dreadnoughtus) lived to the end of the Cretaceous to see the asteroid strike.
Not to mention the pronated hands, and Brontosaurus definitely ate more than 45 kg of food each day. That is how much I weigh (I’m skinny), they would’ve eaten at least a few hundred kilograms. Plus, Tyrannosaurus wasn’t twice the length of Triceratops and Stegosaurus, it was 12-13 meters long.

frankiek_

If I had the animating skills I would make accurate dinosaur videos, but I’m fourteen merp, but I am good at art so much might just do my demonstrations in drawing them

davidmcwilliams

Title:T-Rex was tiny.
T-Rex: come on, I told you not to tell anyone!

SVishnu-xybu

The biggest dinosaur of my childhood was Barney

**I regret everything**

cocopownder

The inaccuracy of the art used for these Dino's is pissing me off personally.

EncrytedError

Minor corrections, 1, theropods hands faced inward not backwards. 2, dilophosaurus didn’t have a sickle claw as it wasn’t a dromaeosaurid (true raptor). Oh and some theropods such as t-rex had feathers.

rexpawprint

For a second i thought i was watching the infographics show

recifie-

Small correction; Prosauropods weren't direct ancestors to "true" Sauropods, but rather a more distant branch of the sauropodomorph clade. While it is true that Sauropods evolved from smaller, bipedal Dinosaurs, Prosauropods did not proceed the typical sauropods as implied by the video.

IIRC, "Prosauropod" is an outdated term. The more modern term for similar looking bipedal Sauropodomorphs would be "Platiosaurids".

TheNightmareRider