Wikipedia:Today's featured article/November 27, 2006

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Stegosaurus sketch by Othniel Charles Marsh (1896)

Stegosaurus is a genus of stegosaurid armoured dinosaur from the Late Jurassic period of what is now western North America. Due to its distinctive tail spikes and plates, Stegosaurus is one of the most recognisable dinosaurs, along with Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops and Diplodocus. At least three species have been identified in the upper Morrison Formation and are known from numerous remains. They lived some 155 to 145 million years ago, in an environment and time dominated by the giant sauropods Diplodocus, Camarasaurus and Apatosaurus. A large, heavily-built and herbivorous quadruped, Stegosaurus had a distinctive and unusual posture, with a heavily-arched back, short forelimbs, head held low to the ground and a stiffened tail held high in the air. Stegosaurus was the largest of all the stegosaurians and, although roughly bus-sized, it nonetheless shared many of the anatomical features with other stegosaurian genera. (more...)

Recently featured: Duke UniversityOperation Wrath of GodBelgrade