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Ouranosaurus

Ouranosaurus (“brave reptile”) was an unusual Iguanodontid that lived throughout the Cretaceous about 110 million years past in what is now Africa. Ouranosaurus deliberate about 24 feet long and weighed about 4 tons.

Like Spinosaurus, a famous meat-eating dinosaur that lived at the same time as Ouranosaurus, it had a large skinned sail on its back that was supported by thick large spines that enclosed its entire back and tail. The sail may have been used to manage its body temperature. When Ouranosaurus was hot, it would face absent from the sun and in the direction of the wind that blew absent the excess heat from its body. When cold, it would have the sail face the sun to warm up its body.

The sail may have also been used for identification, as Ouranosaurus may have lived in herds for protection next to predators like Suchomimus and Carcharodontosaurus. Possibly colored, its sail may have also been used to attract females or to threaten mail rivals.

On each hand it bore a thumb claw that was much smaller than the thumb claw of Iguanodon. It had a strange head that resembled a hadrosaur, a duckbilled dinosaur.

Ouranosaurus was an herbivore that had no teeth in the front but have large batteries of teeth on the sides of the jaws used to masticate up plant food with its sharp beak.