Stegosaur (Stegosaurus stenops)
Among the quadrupedal vegetarians an interesting family is represented by Stegosaurus, a late Jurassic dinosaur having a length of about twenty feet. These creatures had heavy limbs, all used in walking, an arched back, and almost no brain at all. A double row of large flattened plates standing upright and extending from the rear of the skull nearly to the tip of the tail provided some protection for the back of the animal, but otherwise there was no defensive armor. Several long spikes at the end of the tail probably served as weapons. The mounted skeleton in our collection was obtained from Garden Park, near Canon City, Colorado, a district which has long been famous for dinosaur remains.
The ankylosaurs were more completely armored with closely set bony plates fitting neatly over the body. They were of about the same size as the stegosaurs but the body was broad and somewhat flattened. These armored quadrupeds apparently lived only during the Cretaceous period, after the disappearance of the stegosaurs. Their tooth equipment was very poor and in a few cases entirely lacking. Ankylosaurus and Nodosaurus are good examples of the type. They have been described as animated tanks and are sometimes referred to as having the appearance of enormous horned toads.
Among the last of the dinosaurs to come and go were the horned quadrupeds known as the Ceratopsia. Their entire history appears to have been confined to the Upper Cretaceous and the closing stages of the reptilian era in America. Triceratops and Monoclonius are well-known representatives of the group. Besides the horns, which appeared above the eyes or near the center of the nose, there was a broad, flattened, backward extension of some of the skull bones which produced a great frill or collar reaching over the neck as far back as the shoulders. This frill, combined with the large skull, gave the animal the appearance of being nearly one-third head. Triceratops had three horns, Monoclonius only one. The average length of the animals was slightly under twenty feet.
Although very little is known about the ancestry of the horned dinosaurs a valuable discovery in Mongolia may throw some light on the subject. A small dinosaur with a well-developed frill, but no horns, once inhabited the region of the present Gobi desert, and in recognition of the apparent relationship it has been named Protoceratops. In addition to numerous skeletons, several nests of eggs were found in association with the bones. Until this discovery was made, dinosaur eggs had been practically unknown. A reproduction of one of these nests is among our exhibits.
A Sea Turtle of Cretaceous Time (Protostega gigas)
This marine animal belongs to a group which became extinct near the close of the great reptilian era, but a few related forms still survive. Their weight is greatly reduced by the peculiar construction of the shell, and the front feet are enlarged for use as oars, an excellent illustration of the manner in which a land type can become adapted to life in the sea.
With the possible exception of a very few short-lived survivals dinosaurs were extinct before the opening of the Age of Mammals, many of them for millions of years. Along with them went other types of ancient reptiles, and the cause of their extinction is a problem which may never be solved. Conditions remained favorable for the turtles, which made their first appearance during Triassic time, and for the crocodiles, which date back to the Jurassic period. Snakes were only at the beginning of their history as the era closed. The survival of these modern forms suggests that they were favored to a greater extent than the dinosaurs during a prolonged period of changing conditions the full details of which are unknown to us.