How Did Allosaurus Work?

and did we mention it was big. Full grown Allosaurus could grow to be thirty four ft or ten and a half meters long, nine ft or three meters tall at the hip, and way around three point two tons. Sherlock Holmes creators or Arthur Conan Doyle mentioned the Alosaurus by name in his nineteen twelve science fiction adventure novel The Lost World. Yet, even giant carnivores take their lumps. From time to time, Ladies and gents, meet Big Al. A sub adult Alasaurus with a killer nickname big Ol

lived in what's now North sun Troll, Wyoming. Scientists would eventually recover of his or maybe her or skeleton. Look closely at the remains and you'll find no fewer than nineteen separate bone fractures, and somehow al sustained injuries to multiple backbones. Towbones and ribs. There's also evidence of a serious infection on the right foot. Big Owl was unearthed

at a Wyoming quarry. In five years later, fossil hunters working in the same state found another Allosaurus skeleton that's come to be known as big Al two, and just like its predecessor, this specimen was pretty banged up. Many of its bones have been fractured or otherwise damaged, only to be re healed during the dinosaur's lifetime, although one hip injury apparently never healed over and may have been

implicated in the ultimate demise of Big Al two. Other Alosaurus fossils also bear the telltale signs of serious wounds. To fully appreciate eate these, we beat take a step back and consider the animals role in its environment. Allosaurus lived during the Late Jurassic period. Back then, giant herbivore dinosaurs called sauropods thundered across the planet, but we often

find their bones in close association with Alosaurus materials. At Dinosaur National Monument, which straddles the Utah Colorado border, there's a protected quarry where visitors can look at a jumbled collection of fossils that's been lying together for the past a hundred and forty nine million years. Besides Allosaurus remains, this quarry includes the bones of such long necked sauropods as Diplodocus, Camarasaurus, and a Patosaurus. Fossils belonging to the

unrelated spiky tailed plant eater Steatosaurus are also present. These were just some of the vegetarian dinos that Allosaurus interacted with, and there was competition at the buffet line. One of its rival predators in late Jurassic North Amera Rica was the Seratosaurus, a horn nosed carnivore that could grow over nineteen feet or six meters long, and which had a short cameo in the movie Jurassic Park three from two thousand one. Compared to some other dinosaurs, Alisaurus had a

weak bite force. The bite of a Tyrannosaurus rex, the famous carnivore that evolved tens of millions of years after the last Allosaurus died out, may have been four times stronger. Even so, Allosaurus performed well under pressure. Mathematical models show that the beast's head could withstand lots of physical strain. In Paleontologists used computer simulations to learn more about how

this dinosaur dismembered its prey. According to their research, Allosaurus may have sometimes behaved like an overgrown falcon at dinner. The animals skull was light and its nick muscles were peculiar, but with their simulations, the researchers showed Alasaurus would have had an see time plucking meat off of corpses by grabbing a hunk of flesh and its jaws and then yanking its head backwards. The falcons do the same thing today, but while those hunting birds have flight ready wings, Alasaurus

had clawed hands. Noting their size and range of motion, dinosaur expert Kenneth Carpenter wrote in two thousand two that Allosaurus could use its arms to quote grasp moderately large prey and pull it towards the body. So what counted as moderately large prey for a ravenous Alasaurus Maybe beaked herbivores like the twenty three ft or seven meter Compotosaurus fit the bill, or perhaps juvenile sauropods. If Alosaurus hunted

adults auropods, scientists aren't sure how. Some species alive in the late Jurassic were around twenty four to thirty four times heavier than even the biggest allosaurus, so the predators might not have bothered A few experts think Alasaurus only targeted young, sick, or dead sauropods, leaving healthy grown ups alone. On the other hand, it's possible that the dinosaur used its serrated teeth to rip the flesh off of giant, still living sauropods in non fatal attacks. There's a pretty

awesome name for this hypothetical feeding technique, flesh grazing. A bite marks tell Us. Stegosaurus, for one, was on the menu only sometimes, though attacking and armored dinosaur might not have been the brightest IDEA one Alosaurus pubic bone shows a gaping wound that matches the size and shape of a Stegosaurus tail spike. Alosaurus has also been suspected of cannibalism.

A survey that was published in May looked at two thousand, three hundred and sixty eight fossil bones, all were covered at the same Jurrassic quarry in Colorado, almost tent bore the bite marks of meat eating dinosaurs with serrated teeth. Many of these not on bones belonged to sauropods and other herbivores. However, some of them came from Alasaurus. Since Alasaurus is also the most abundant predatory dinosaur found at this dig site, it's entirely possible that we're looking at

evidence of cannibalistic behavior. Also, no discussion about Allosaurus would be complete without mentioning Utah's mysterious Cleveland Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry or c l d Q. Fossils of ten different dinos species have been excavated here, including plant eaters like Stegosaurus and a Patosaurus. Yet a remarkable sixty percent of all the dinosaur bones found in the quarry were left behind by Allosaurus. Altogether, the quarry has yielded parts of at

least forty six Allosaurus skeletons. Some were juveniles, others were full grown adults, but they all died in the same spot. And the question is why and why are the numbers so skewed? Why is Alosaurus so overrepresented there? Several explanations have been put forth over the years. Maybe the c l d Q was once a Jurassic predator trap, and basically that's a place where herbivores get caught in the thick mud or another substance and then attract carnivores who

die the same way. All those bodies attract even more carnivores, with dead and dying predators vastly outnumbering prey species. Critics say the rarity of bite marks on the quarries dinosaur bones is a strike against this hypothesis, though Another hypothesis is that the quarry was the home of a poisoned watering hole or a normal one that dried up, leaving thirsty dinosaurs to die on its banks, and a third proposed scenario blames flooding for the accumulation of the skeletons.

Today's episode is based on the article Allosaurus was a massive flesh grazer and possible cannibal on how stuff works dot Com, written by Mark Vancini. Brain Stuff is production of by Heart Radio in partnership of how stuff works dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite show.