Dinosaur diet

DINOSAUR DIET Until about 140 million years ago, there were no flowering plants anywhere on Earth. Some gigantic plant-eating dinosaurs of the Jurassic period browsed in the treetops for the tough, fibrous foliage of pine trees that existed at the time. Others reached down to pluck the fronds of low-growing and nutritious ferns and horsetails.

During this time, the climate was warm and moist almost everywhere, with no polar ice. This encouraged the growth of dense forests of conifers, ginkgos, club mosses, cycads, and tree ferns that covered much of the land. Dinosaurs such as these two Diplodocus, which lived in what is now North America, had long, flexible necks for stretching high into the trees to feed. They could even rear up on their hind legs for extra height. Similar to modern elephants, they also would have broken down a lot of trees, creating open areas where smaller plants such as ferns could flourish. Diplodocus fed on these, too, combing the stems through their peglike teeth to strip away the green foliage and gulping it down without chewing.