The sauropods were a group of large saurischian herbivores that included the world's largest-ever terrestrial animals. This group rumbled along on four, enormous, pillar-like, roughly equal-sized legs, with a long tail trailing behind. Sauropods also had very long necks, and their heads were relatively small, at least in comparison with the overall mass of these immense animals. The teeth were peg-like and were mostly used for grazing, rather than for chewing their diet of plant matter. Digestion was probably aided by large stones in an enormous gizzard, in much the same way that modern, seed-eating birds grind their food. The sauropods were most abundant during the Late Jurassic. They declined afterwards and were replaced as dominant herbivores by different types of dinosaurs, especially the hadrosaurs.

 

Most dinosaurs were herbivores which and plants. They had teeth designed to grind their food. They had larger intestines than carnivores because plants are harder to digest than meat, so they had to eat huge quantities. Their large heavy stomachs meant they had to walk on all fours most of the time so as not to overbalance. The largest dinosaurs may have grown as long as 45 m and weighed as much as 77 tonnes.

 

Later on, some herbivores developed with their stomachs between their hind legs, and these were able to move around on two legs. Iguanadon is one such herbivore. Other herbivores developed armour plating and moved about on all fours, for example, Stegosaurus, Triceratops and Dyoplosaurus.

 

 

 

Triceratops	Stegosaurus	Dyoplosaurus

 

Visit the image gallery for more Herbivores.

 

Triceratops was the most numerous of the horned cretaceous dinosaurs as well as the largest ceratopsian; it was one of the last to become extinct. Its name means "three horned face". Triceratops was a herbivore and its largest predator was Tyrannosaurus rex. It probably ate cycads and all other low-lying plants; it could chew them well with its cheek teeth. These animals probably lived in vast herds and hatched from eggs. They made up the bulk of the herbivore population just before the end of the Cretaceous period.

 

 

Triceratops had a skull that reached up 6 ft (2m) in length with three protective horns and a great frill of bone that served for muscle attachment to the neck as well as protection from predators. Triceratops had one short horn above its beak and two long, double-recurved brow horns (up to 3 ft/90 cm long). The horns provided it with a very dangerous weapon and may have also been used in mating rivalry and rituals.

 

 

Its head with large eyes was almost one-third as long as its body (up to 10 ft/3 m long) and was the largest ever possessed by a land animal. Its tough beak was toothless, but Triceratops had many cheek teeth and powerful jaws. It walked on all four, short and sturdy legs with hoof-like claws. Its body was bulky and it had a short tail. It also had a thick bumpy hide, prints of which have survived, to protect it against predator attacks, many of which could have come from the fearsome T-rex.

 

Triceratops skulls are very common occurrences in the fossil record, in coastal lowland sediments, but skeletons are rare. Many specimens have bones damaged in combats with predators. Triceratops remains were first discovered in 1887 (Colorado, USA).

 

Stegosaurus had 17 bony plates that were embedded in its back - the plates ran along the Stegosaurus' back and tail in two rows, and the plates alternated in alignment. The largest of these triangular plates was about 2.5 ft (76 cm) tall and just as long. Stegosaurus also had spikes at the end of its flexible tail (these are called thagomizers).

Although Stegosaurus was about the size of a bus, it had a small head (the size of a horse's head) and a brain that was only the size of a walnut!