Sunday, March 20, 2022

Alamosaurus the Biggest Dinosaur of North America... and other Titanosaurs coloring pages

 Welcome to my free coloring pages blog. 

There are no ads and no fees on this blog.

Today's new drawing is of Alamosaurus.  A huge Sauropod from North America.



Alamosaurus feeding near a Volcano

(new drawing)

Alamosaurus was a huge Titanosaur. It was unique because it was one of the few Sauropods with dermal armor.  Dermal armor is like what crocodiles have.  It is very dense and very tough.  IT also had spines or spikes for protection.  I only recently discovered the actual currently predicted size of this huge animal.  Paleontologists have known for 10 years but I just found out about it.  

Here is how I discovered this:  I was watching a symposium talk or a lecture about T. rex.  The presenter, Dr. Thomas Holz, titled the talk The Life And Tines Of Tyrannosaurus rex.  Dr. Holtz mentioned that there was a huge contemporary Titanosaur that lived at the time of Tyrannosaurus rex.  That was news to me so I looked it up.  To my surprise, paleontologists now think that Alamosaurus was 98 feet long and weighed between 72.5 and 80 tons!  That makes it the biggest land animal ever to live in North America.  Fossils of Alamosaurus have been found here in Utah, as well as Wyoming, Texas, and New Mexico.  The New Mexico find is the first location. 

This discovery of larger fossilized bones of Alamosaurus makes it among the biggest of land animals to ever have walked the Earth.  And, again, it was the biggest land animal ever found to have walked North America... and it lived 66 million years ago - right before the meteorite wiped out the big dinosaurs.  

There is some disagreement on what is the largest dinosaur.  Patagotitan is a possibility but many paleontologists give the title to Argentinosaurus. at 130 feet long and possibly up to 100 tons in weight.  Original estimates go from 100-130 feet long and 50-100 tons

In this drawing notice the additional Alamosaurus in the background as well as a T. rex.  Tyrannosaurus rex would not have been able to hunt a healthy Alamosaurus.  But a tooth of a T. rex was found embedded in an Alamosaurus bone.  This shows that T. rex probably at least scavenged dead carcasses of this huge animal.  Of course, a sick or young Alamosaurus would have been top prey.  There was enough meat there to feed a pack of Tyrannosaurs for a few weeks.  

I have read that the Alamosaurus is displayed at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas, Texas.  Now I have to go to Dallas to see it.  I hope that my health improves so I can handle that long of a trip.  

NOTE: This new drawing, in printable form, can be found by clicking don't the button labeled "Paleontology."  Then scroll to the bottom of the Mesozoic portion of this list.  Down below this paragraph is sone drawing of Titanosaurs from previous posts. Their printable pages are located further up the list.  New drawings are on the bottom of the list. 



Argentinosaurus and Argentinodraco



Argentinosaurus at Nesting Site




Patagotitan mayorum the Biggest Dinosaur
(SOME paleontologists thought so, but the more current measurements put it at 55 tons instead of 75,)




Patagotitan
We have seen the display of the skeleton of this huge Sauropod dinosaur at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City!   The bones are casts.  The original bones are still in Argentina in South America.  Still, it was an amazing experience to see that huge Sauropod skeleton.  We have also seen the skeleton of the Argentinosaurus in a museum in Germany. The sight brought me to tears I was so amazed!



No comments:

Post a Comment