How Big Were Prehistoric Animals?

NOMS Article of the Week #8 How Big Were Prehistoric Animals?

Instructions: COMPLETE ALL QUESTIONS AND MARGIN NOTES using the CLOSE reading strategies practiced in class. This requires reading of the article three times.

Step 1: Skim the article using these symbols as you read: (+) agree, (-) disagree, (*) important, (!) surprising, (?) wondering

Step 2: Number the paragraphs. Read the article carefully and make notes in the margin.

Step 3: A final quick read noting anything you may have missed during the first two reads.

Your margin notes are part of your score for this assessment. Answer the questions carefully in complete sentences unless otherwise instructed.

Student ______Period______Due 10/16/2014

Notes on my thoughts, How Big Were Prehistoric Animals? reactions and questions as I The size of prehistoric animals can be difficult to comprehend: 50 tons here, 50 read: feet there, and pretty soon you're talking about a creature that's as much bigger than an elephant as an elephant is bigger than a house cat. In this picture gallery, you can see how some of the most famous extinct animals that ever lived would have sized up against an average human being--which will give you a good idea what "big" really means!

The largest dinosaur for which we have compelling fossil evidence, Argentinosaurus , measured over 100 feet from head to tail and may have weighed in excess of 100 tons. Even still, it's possible that this South American titanosaur was preyed upon by packs of the contemporary theropod Giganotosaurus .

Less well known than the equally giant Quetzalcoatlus, Hatzegopteryx made its home on Hatzeg Island, which was isolated from the rest of central Europe during the late Cretaceous period. Not only was Hatzegopteryx's skull ten feet long, but this pterosaur may have had a wingspan of a whopping 40 feet (though it probably only weighed a few hundred pounds, since a heavier build would have made it less aerodynamic).

Dinosaurs weren't the only reptiles that grew to enormous sizes during the Mesozoic Era. There were also gigantic crocodiles, notably the North American Deinosuchus, which measured over 30 feet from head to tail and weighed as much as ten tons. As intimidating as it was, though, Deinosuchus would have been no match for the slightly earlier Sarcosuchus, aka the SuperCroc; this African crocodile tipped the scales at a whopping 15 tons!

Strauss,B. How big were prehistoric animals? About Education. October 7, 2014. NOMS Article of the Week #8 How Big Were Prehistoric Animals?

The biggest terrestrial mammal that ever lived, Indricotherium (also known as Paraceratherium) measured about 40 feet from head to tail and weighed in the Notes on my thoughts, reactions and questions as I vicinity of 15 to 20 tons--which put this Oligocene ungulate in the same weight read: class as the titanosaur dinosaurs that vanished off the face of the earth 50 million years before. This giant plant-eater probably had a prehensile lower lip, with which it ripped the leaves off the high branches of trees.

Granted, you probably already have a sense of how big Brachiosaurus was from repeated viewings of Jurassic Park. But what you may not have realized is how tall this sauropod was: because its front legs were significantly longer than its back legs, Brachiosaurus could attain the height of a five-story office building when it reared its neck up to its full height (a speculative posture which is still a subject of debate among paleontologists).

There's not much to say about Megalodon that hasn't all been said before: this was fins-down the biggest prehistoric shark that ever lived, measuring anywhere from 50 to 70 feet long and weighing as much as 100 tons. The only ocean dweller that matched Megalodon's heft was the prehistoric whale Leviathan, which briefly shared this shark's habitat during the Miocene epoch.

Compared to some of the other animals on this list, the Woolly Mammoth was nothing to write home about--this megafauna mammal measured about 13 feet long and weighed five tons soaking wet, making it only slightly bigger than the biggest modern elephants. However, you have to put Mammuthus primigenius in the proper Pleistocene context, where this prehistoric pachyderm was both hunted and worshiped as a demigod by the earliest humans.

Tyrannosaurus Rex gets all the press, but the fact is that Spinosaurus was the more impressive dinosaur--not only in terms of its size (50 feet long and eight or nine tons, compared to 40 feet and six or seven tons for T. Rex) but also its appearance (that sail was a pretty cool accessory). It's possible that Spinosaurus occasionally grappled with the huge prehistoric crocodile Sarcosuchus.

The prehistoric snake Titanoboa made up for its relative lack of heft (it only weighed about a ton) with its impressive length--fully grown adults stretched 50 feet from head to tail. This Paleocene snake shared its South American habitat with equally huge crocodiles and turtles, including the one-ton Carbonemys, with which it may occasionally have grappled.

It sounds like the punchline to a prehistoric joke--a 20-foot-long, three-ton sloth in the same weight class as the Woolly Mammoth. But the fact is that herds of Megatherium were thick on the ground in Pliocene and Pleistocene South America, rearing up on their stocky hind legs to rip the leaves off trees (and fortunately leaving the other mammalian megafauna to themselves, since sloths are confirmed vegetarians).

Strauss,B. How big were prehistoric animals? About Education. October 7, 2014. NOMS Article of the Week #8 How Big Were Prehistoric Animals?

Comprehension questions – answers may be in phrases.

1. What does the author mean when stating that some dinosaurs are “famous”?

2. What did Megatherium eat, according to scientists?

3. Define comprehend as used in the article.

4. What movie was used as a means of comparison in the text?

5. Define heft as used in the text.

2. Answer each question in one or more complete sentences.

To what is the author referring when stating, “Tyrannosaurus Rex gets all the press.”?

7/8.RI.1,2,3,4,5

How did Argentinosaurus likely earn its name?

Of the

What is the main idea of this article?

Strauss,B. How big were prehistoric animals? About Education. October 7, 2014. NOMS Article of the Week #8 How Big Were Prehistoric Animals?

3. Using the descriptions in the text, label each of the “creatures”.

(

4. Open -ended response: Which of the dinosaurs mentioned would you least want to encounter? Be sure to answer the question in a complete sentence and include textual evidence to prove your reasoning.

Answer this in OER format.

Annotations :______/20 Questions: ______/80 Grade:______+ Extra Credit_____ =

Strauss,B. How big were prehistoric animals? About Education. October 7, 2014.