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January 30, 2026<\/p>\n
2 min read<\/p>\n
Add Us On Google<\/span>Add SciAm<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n For predatory dinosaurs, the Late Jurassic was an all-you-can-eat sauropod buffet<\/p>\n Some 150 million years ago sauropods dramatically shaped the dinosaur ecosystem in what is now the western U.S., according to a new study<\/p>\n By Jackie Flynn Mogensen edited by Claire Cameron<\/span><\/p>\n The Morrison Formation is a hotbed of dinosaur fossils. Spanning across much of the western U.S., this layer of rock dates to the Late Jurassic, some 163.5 million to 145 million years ago. It holds the remains of iconic dinosaurs, such as the armored Stegosaurus and the about 30-foot-long, meat-eating Allosaurus. Paleontologists have been digging through the formation since at least 1876. But only now are we getting a glimpse of how the dinosaurs that are found there interacted with one another while they were alive.<\/p>\n Sauropods\u2014humongous reptiles with a long neck and tail and thick, elephantlike legs\u2014played a starring role in the dinosaur ecosystem, according to a new study.<\/p>\n These massive dinosaurs are the largest creatures to ever walk on land. But they also played a crucial part in the food chain, the study authors write, acting as \u201cecosystem engineers.\u201d The research was published on Friday in the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin.<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n By looking at fossil records from a section of the Morrison Formation in southwestern Colorado called the Dry Mesa Dinosaur Quarry, the researchers were able to reconstruct the dinosaur food chain across a several-thousand-year period of the Late Jurassic.<\/p>\n William Hart, now a graduate assistant at East Tennessee State University and one of the authors of the paper, compares sauropods to the elephants of today\u2014these dinosaurs were \u201ckeystone\u201d species, he says, creatures that had an outsized influence on its ecosystem.<\/p>\n Part of the reason why is that baby sauropods were easy pickings for predatory dinosaurs such as Allosaurus and Torvosaurus, another large meat eater. \u201cLife was cheap in this ecosystem,\u201d said Cassius Morrison, a Ph.D. candidate at University College London and lead author of the paper, in a statement. \u201cThe lives of predators such as the Allosaurus were likely fueled by the consumption of these baby sauropods.\u201d<\/p>\n Sauropods are thought to have been voracious plant eaters, taking in heaps of vegetation to fuel their impressive growth\u2014from eggs that were only a foot wide to full-grown adults that could weigh more than 15 tons.<\/p>\n Ultimately, the findings offer clues to how dinosaurs actually lived. \u201cReconstructing food webs means we can more easily compare dinosaur ecosystems across different periods,\u201d Morrison said in the same statement. \u201cIt helps us to understand evolutionary pressures and why dinosaurs might have evolved in the way they did.\u201d<\/p>\n If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. 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I hope it does that for you, too.<\/p>\n If you subscribe to Scientific American<\/span>, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.<\/p>\n In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.<\/p>\n There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" January 30, 2026 2 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm For predatory dinosaurs, the Late Jurassic was an all-you-can-eat sauropod buffet Some 150 million years ago sauropods dramatically shaped the dinosaur ecosystem in what is now the western U.S., according to a new study By Jackie Flynn Mogensen edited by Claire Cameron The Morrison<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43240,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[12982,12983,10393,2662,3196,22650,22651],"class_list":{"0":"post-43239","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-allyoucaneat","9":"tag-buffet","10":"tag-dinosaurs","11":"tag-jurassic","12":"tag-late","13":"tag-predatory","14":"tag-sauropod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}On supporting science journalism<\/h2>\n
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