What are sauropods?

Sauropods were a group of dinosaurs that were all built to the same general design. They all had a short barrel-shaped body to accommodate the huge gut needed to digest their vegetable diet, a very long neck and tail, a comparatively tiny head and peg-like teeth for grazing. The other important feature of the sauropods is that they were all enormous. They were extremely heavy, and because they lived in large herds they churned up the ground as they move about. It is still possible to see the damage caused by their movements in the ancient rock layers were fossils of the sauropods were found.

The long neck of the sauropods is thought to be an adaptation to help animals feed on tall trees, like the modern giraffe. The whole structure of the dinosaurs is a very clever piece of engineering, because their long neck, which was usually held out horizontally, was balanced by the weight of the tail. The vertebrae were shaped to allow the attachment of powerful muscles and rope-like tendons and ligaments, which held the whole structure together like a suspension bridge. Despite the great length of the neck and tail, they were not a flexible as we might think. They were usually stretched out almost in a straight line.