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As one of the most popular topics, dinosaurs never seem to lose their appeal, especially when it comes to kids. For example, the most popular Tyrannosaurus rex, do you know anything about the trex lifespan? So how long did a dinosaur live? And What factors will affect the dinosaur lifespan?
In fact, dinosaur lifespan has much debate for many years. Some scientists believe that dinosaurs lived for hundreds, even thousands of years. Others believe that they had relatively short lifespans, similar to those of other animals. So, what is the life expectancy of dinosaurs?
In this blog post, we will talk about some of the factors that influence dinosaur lifespans and try to come up with an estimate of how long they really lived.
As one of the most popular topics, dinosaurs never seem to lose their appeal, especially when it comes to kids. So How long did a dinosaur live? And What factors will affect the dinosaur lifespan?
In this blog post, we will talk about some of the factors that influence dinosaur lifespans and try to come up with an estimate of how long they really lived.
Take a quick preview of what you are about to read and click it to get your answer!
1. How do scientists know the Dinosaur lifespan？
Unfortunately, we don’t have an accurate way to measure dinosaur life spans. However, we can make some educated guesses based on the evidence that we do have.
The fossil record is the remains or traces of past living things, scientists can estimate the dinosaur’s age by its fossil bones. But some people think these dinosaur bones can only tell us how old the creature was when it died.
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One way is to look at fossils of modern reptiles. But scientists only have fragments of dinosaur fossils, so they have to do some detective work.
Look at the Triceratops fossils for sale in the image above! For example, researchers can look at the shape of bones and make educated guesses about how big the dinosaurs grew when it was alive.
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They can also look at growth rings inside bones, much like looking at a tree to tell how old it is or what is the growth rates. Given bones grew continuously and didn’t have neat growth rings, many species ages will be hard to measure.
In some cases, they could compare it to the rings of modern animals which have been studied and are known to live a certain number of years, such as common alligator or giant tortoises that are still alive today.
2. What factors will affect the Dinosaur lifespan?
The dinosaur’s age depended on many factors, such as its size, diet, and environment.
In general, we can observe that larger animals live longer than smaller ones. Paleontologists can get a rough idea about the life spans according to many dinosaurs’ sizes. The larger the dinosaur, the longer it could live. Some scientists estimate that the largest sauropods could live to be over 100 years old! The smaller dinosaurs probably only lived for a few years like smaller animals.
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In addition to size, scientists believe that dinosaurs typically had a shorter life expectancy than mammals of today due to the dangerous environment they lived in and their large size which made them more susceptible to injury.
We have mentioned that larger dinosaurs tend to live a long life than smaller ones. So, dinosaur lifespan also depends on its genus. The longest-lived dinosaurs were the sauropods, which could reach lengths of over 100 feet and weights of over 50 tons. These massive herbivores could also live for over 200 years!
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The smaller, meat-eating dinosaurs were more closely related to some of today’s larger birds than one might think. So, the life expectancy of birds and mammals will both give us some reference for dinosaurs’ age.
3. How long did a dinosaur live?
Some studies suggest that the largest sauropods might be like elephant today with life span of about 70 or 80 years, such as Apatosaurus and Diplodocus dinosaurs. This is based on comparisons with crocodiles and turtles, which have much slower metabolisms.
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We have talked about size really does matter when it comes to longevity! So the life span of a chicken-sized Compsognathus might only be five to ten years, while a much larger Allosaurus could live for up to fifty or sixty years.
4. How long did a Tyrannosaurus rex live?
Tyrannosaurus rex was one of the shortest lived dinosaurs, with a life span of around 20-30 years.
The T. rex at the Field Museum of Chicago is the biggest and best-preserved one we know of. Paleontologists think it lived to be almost 29 years old age.
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A new study has found that the oldest known Tyrannosaurus rex specimen was at least 30 years old when she died. The findings, published in the journal Science, overturn previous estimates that placed the maximum age for the T. rex at 20-28 years.
T.rex growth stages are not long, but it does not impact people’s love for the king of lizards.
5. What was the average lifespan of a dinosaur?
Scientists have studied fossils and concluded that the average dinosaur lifespan was between 20 and 30 years.
That may not seem overly impressive at first glance, since the average life expectancy of humans is 72.6 years in 2019 according to the UN.
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But keep in mind that these dinosaurs were living in a time when the average life expectancy was only around 20-30 years.
In addition to that, they were constantly being hunted by predators and had to find food to survive. Due to the accidental death, it might be hard for them to achieve adult size.
In today’s world, we are fortunate enough to live in relative safety with access to plenty of food – imagine if your only worry was whether or not you would be eaten by other dinosaurs tomorrow!
6. What caused their extinction?
The Jurassic period was a time of great transformation–not just for the dinosaurs that roamed the earth, but for life in general.
During this time, huge changes took place in both the physical environment and the distribution of organisms. These changes included an increase in global temperature, rising sea levels, and a decrease in humidity.
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While some scrolls indicate that these shifts may have had an impact on dinosaur lifespan, they didn’t cause them to become extinct 66 million years ago. In fact, new research suggests that dinosaurs were actually thriving during this time!
So what caused their extinction? Many scientists believe that a comet, asteroid, or meteor might have caused the mass extinction of dinosaurs.
Others believe that volcanic eruptions could be to blame. But most researchers agree that it was probably a combination of these factors which led to the demise of dinosaurs.
Conclusion
After reading this blog, you must have a clear idea about the dinosaur lifespan. You can talk with your friends or foster your pint-sized paleontologists about those creatures in the million years ago. As an animatronic dinosaur manufacturing expert, Only Dinosaurs hope to provide more dino knowledge to dino lovers!
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