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| More Dinosaur Fact Sheets | EnchantedLearning.com Metriacanthosaurus Fact Sheet |
Dinosaur/Paleontology Dictionary |
| NAME: | Meaning - Metriacanthosaurus means "medium spine lizard" Pronounced - met-re-ah-CAN-tho-SAWR-us Named By - Walker When Named - 1964 |
| DIET: | Carnivore (meat-eater) |
| SIZE: | Length - about 23-26 ft (7-8 m) long Height - 6 ft (1.8 m) tall at the hips Weight - roughly 1 ton |
| WHEN IT LIVED: | Jurassic period, about 160-154 million years ago |
| WHERE IT LIVED: | Fossils have been found in England, Europe. |
| FOSSILS: | A partial skeleton was found with no skull. |
| CLASSIFICATION: |
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| INTERESTING FACTS: |
Metriacanthosaurus had spines on its backbone (spines that were twice as long as a vertebra), hence its name. This dinosaur may have been an ancestor of the spinosaurids (huge Cretaceous period predators with crocodile-like jaws and with neural spines forming a sail). |
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