Tails

• All dinosaurs evolved with tails--though some individuals may have lost theirs in attacks or accidents!

• The length of the tail relative to the body, and its shape, thickness, and special features, give many clues as to how the dinosaur used it.

• The longest tails, at more than 55ft (17m), belonged to the giant plant-eating sauropods such as Diplodocus.

• Some sauropods had a linked chain of more than 80 separate bones inside the tail--more than twice the usual number.

• A sauropod may have used its tail as a whip to flick at enemies.

• Many meat-eating dinosaurs that stood and ran on their back legs had thick-based tails to counterbalance the weight of their bodies and heads.

• Small, fast, agile meat-eaters, such as Compsognathus, used their tails for balance when leaping and darting about.

• The meat-eater Ornitholestes had a tail that was more than half of its 6ft (2m) length, and was used as a counterbalance-rudder to help it turn corners quickly.

• The armored dinosaurs known as ankylosaurs had two huge lumps of bone at the ends of their tails, which they swung at their enemies like a club.

• The tails of the duckbilled dinosaurs (hadrosaurs) may have been swished from side to side in the water as an aid to swimming.

By: Parker, Steve, Dinosaurs