This past week on the Fossil Friday, I gave you what looked to me like a turkey leg. But actually it was a dino femur. Who was it that it belonged to? It was a Diplodocus!
From Live Science:
"Because Diplodocus could not elevate his head more than about 17 feet (5.4 m) off the ground, it survived mostly on low-lying vegetation, thought to be mostly soft new growth of conifers, tree ferns and moss. While it could not lift its head much above the horizontal position, it had great mobility from side to side, making it easy to devastate large swaths of vegetation.
Based on the wear patterns of its pencil-like teeth that were bunched in the front of its mouth, it is believed that the dinosaur stripped the vegetation from branches or even swallowed the branches whole. Its weak jaw and miniscule and slender teeth made it unlikely that Diplodocus chewed its food."
This picture was taken by my good friend Valerie Seymour at Dinosaur National Monument on her way through Colorado. It looks like an amazing park—I'm adding it to the bucket list.
Joshua Vallejos was the first to identify this fellow, but GrizzlyD was hot on his tail identifying the location as Dino National Monument. There was a lack of discussion overall about how it would taste with mint jelly, though—as it seems mint jelly has gone the way of raspberry vinaigrette, poached pears, and truffled potatoes (i.e., passé), but I'm certain it would have been delightful with a side of fall cranberry sauce.
