"Big Al" the Allosaurus in Wyoming
Paleontologist O.C. Marsh named the carnivorous dinosaur Allosaurus fragillis in 1877 from fossil bones discovered in Colorado. The name refers to the strange lightness of the creature's vertebrae (Allosaurus = different lizard; fragillis = fragile).
Courtesy Mark Ryan.
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do you know if the Allosaurus was lizard hipped or bird hipped? it's for a school project and i'm doing the Allosaurus, mainly "Big Al". can you please tell me, thank you.
Stephanie
Allosaurus was lizard-hipped or Saurischia in classification. I'm studying paleontology and I know my dinos. So If you have any other questions let me know. Also I do know little bit more about Big Al.
Allosaurus was definitely lizard-hipped, or "saurischian." ("Ornithiscian" is bird-hipped.)
In lizard-hipped dinosaurs, the two bones that stick down from the hips (the pubis and ischium) are spread further apart, kind of like an upside-down "Y." In bird-hipped dinosaurs, those two bones are closer together and both point backwards (towards the tail).
If you can't actually look at a dinosaur's skeleton, but you know it's a meat-eater (like the allosaurus was), it's a pretty safe bet that it's saurischian (lizard-hipped). I could be wrong... but I'm pretty sure that just about all meat-eating dinosaurs were lizard-hipped. But there were plant-eating sauruschians too, like long-necked and long-tailed sauropods (think brontosaurus or diplodocus).
Bird-hipped dinosaurs all ate plants (again, as far as I can remember). Triceratops, stegosaurus, and duck-billed dinosaurs were all bird-hipped. They're called "bird-hipped" because their hip bones are arranged more like birds' hips are, but birds actually evolved from lizard-hipped dinosaurs.
So, yes, allosaurs, Big Al included, are all lizard-hipped. Does that help?