Carnotaurus Facts
Carnotaurus Facts
|
| Interesting Carnotaurus Facts: |
|---|
| Carnotaurus was 26 to 30 feet long and it had 1 to 1.3 tons of weight. |
| Unlike in many other species of dinosaurs, skin of Carnotaurus was feather-free and bumpy. Carnotaurus had typical reptilian skin covered with non-overlapping scales and rows of bony lumps called osteoderms (hence the bumpy appearance). |
| Carnotaurus had extremely small arms (even smaller than the arms of T-Rex) with 4 completely useless fingers. |
| Carnotaurus was bipedal animal, which means that its body was upright and that it walked on the hind legs. |
| Unlike most dinosaurs which had eyes on the lateral sides of the head, Carnotaurus had forward-facing eyes. Researchers believe that it maybe had partial binocular vision. |
| Carnotaurus had short skull with a pair of knobby, 6-inches-long horns above eyes. Up until today, Carnotaurus is the only carnivorous dinosaurs with horns. |
| Name "Carnotaurus" means "meat-eating bull". It refers to the bull-like horns on the head and food preferences of this species of dinosaur. |
| Carnotaurus had long, slender teeth. It had 16 teeth on the each side of the upper jaw and 15 teeth on the each side of the lower jaw. |
| Carnotaurus was living side by side with snakes, turtles, crocodiles, marine reptiles and mammals. Since it was an apex predator, its diet was diverse and based on various types of animals. |
| Carnotaurus had relatively weak bite (only two times stronger than a bite of American alligator). That's why some scientists believe that its diet was based exclusively on smaller animals, while others believe that Carnotaurus was able to overpower large dinosaurs such as Titanosaurus due to ability to gather in groups and hunt cooperatively. |
| Based on the anatomy of horns (flat and broad upper surface), scientists concluded that Carnotaurus was using its horns in ritual fights to grab attention of females and get opportunity to mate. |
| Carnotaurus had muscular, broad and straight instead of S-shaped neck (that is typical for many dinosaurs) which further supports hypothesis that males were often implicated in head-to-head, ram-like fights. |
| Carnotaurus was one of the fastest theropods thanks to its very long hind legs equipped with strong muscles that were connected with long, muscular tail. Despite impressive speed, Carnotaurus wasn't able to instantly change direction due to tightly interlocked vertebrae in the tail. |
| Carnotaurus is featured in Disney animated movie "Dinosaur", Michael Crichton's book "Jurassic Park" and TV series "Terra Nova". |
| All facts about Carnotaurus are based on a single, well-preserved fossil. |
|
Related Links: Facts Dinosaurs Facts Animals Facts Dinosaurs Facts for Kids |