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Size helped largest dinos survive longer?

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The largest dinosaurs who ever lived became increasingly front-heavy over time:

The team found that these linked trends in size, body shape and weight distribution did not end with the evolution of fully quadrupedal sauropods. In the Cretaceous period — the last of the three ages of the dinosaurs — many earlier sauropod groups dwindled. In their place, a new and extremely large type of sauropod known as titanosaurs evolved, including the truly massive Argentinosaurus and Dreadnoughtus, among the largest known animals ever to have lived.

The team’s computer models suggest that in addition to their size, the titanosaurs evolved the most extreme ‘front heavy’ body shape of all sauropods, as a result of their extremely long necks.

Dr Philip Mannion from Imperial College London, a collaborator in the research, added: “These innovations in body shape might have been key to the success of titanosaurs, which were the only sauropod dinosaurs to survive until the end-Cretaceous mass extinction, 66 million years ago.”

It would be interesting to know why huge was an advantage.

Comments
From a YEC stance we would say thee dinos were living hundreds of years and simply kept growing. Its true a long neck would be heavy but remember the classic case that the bones would be made with gaps and so it would not be heavy ass thought. this is a great case of convergent evolution because some hugh rhinos also had the same gaps in the neck bones etc. In reality it was from common design being triggered.Robert Byers
April 12, 2016
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