Sauroposeidon’s five senses are little more than a life-support system for the biggest stomach the world has ever known. For a hatchling, the situation is even more dire. They lack even the most basic early warning system that danger is present.

 

Herbivores are growing much faster than the carnivores. If they don’t grow fast, they get eaten. 

 

It will be a decade or more before this Sauroposeidon is big enough to join the herd. And it will spend all those years alone.

 

So where are the smaller animals? What did the Sauropods do until they were a third grown? They weren’t moving with the herd. They were probably hiding out in the forest, trying to eat as much as they could, get as big as they could, as fast as they could so they could join the herd. That’s the best defense. It doesn’t matter what else you’re equipped with, whether you have horns or armor or whatever. The best defense is always to get big. If you are a Sauropod, you’ve got nothing else. So getting big is the only game in town. 

 

But for a Sauroposeidon, every day spent growing up is a day trying to keep out of the sights of this brute.

 

Deinonychus is a killing machine. 

 

Here was a creature that was small. It was fast.

 

Deinonychus was really one of the most remarkable predators the earth has seen—a three-dimensional fighter, a kickboxing dinosaur.

 

The weapon that defines Deinonychus is a slashing ten-centimeter razor sharp blade, kept upper right during walking or running, constantly cocked ready for a fight.

 

This vicious claw can deliver over 200 kilograms of force and rotate almost 180 degrees.