Scientists figured out how much the world's most complete Stegosaurus stenops skeleton weighed when it walked the Earth 150 million years ago.
The researchers determined the dinosaur would have weighed a hefty 3,500 pounds, Britain's Natural History Museum reported. The findings could provide insight into the lives of these ancient creatures.
To make their findings the research team combined a 3-D model of the extremely well-preserved skeleton with a more traditional weight-estimating technique, allowing them to determine the dinosaur's weight. The second method's weight estimates were almost twice what was determined by the 3-D model, but since the Stegosaurus looked at in the study died as a young adult, its limbs were growing faster than the rest of its body. Once this factor was taken into account, both models agreed on an estimated weight of about 3,500 pounds.
"Because this incredible specimen is so complete, we have been able to create a [3-D] digital model of the whole fossil and each of its 360 bones, which we can research in excellent detail without using any of the original bones," said museum scientist Charlotte Brassey.
The Stegosaurus' weight could reveal other secrets of its life, such as how fast it was able to walk and how much it needed to eat to stay alive. The study also provides an explanation for why there have been disparities between estimates based on body volume and leg-bone circumference in past fossil studies.
"These findings identify just how important exceptionally complete specimens like this are for scientific research and collections," said Museum scientist Paul Barrett. "We can use the same techniques on other complete fossils to find out much more about the wider ecology of dinosaurs."
The researchers noted the Stegosaurus had an extremely unusual body type because it originally evolved from animals that walked on two legs.
"Dinosaurs are related to modern birds and crocodiles, but their anatomy could have been quite different in some cases," Brassey said. "The main muscles that would be used to pull the hind limbs backwards would have been pretty large and would have attached quite far down the tail. Combined with its wide hips, it's fair to say this Stegosaurus probably would have had quite a large rear end."
