What is the largest dinosaur ever discovered?
Was Tyrannosaurus Rex a scavenger or a hunter or a combination of both? What use were its front legs? Have any dinosaur fossils/bones been found in Southern California? If so, where and when?
What do you think led to the extinction of the dinosaurs?
from Maureen G, age 56, Moreno Valley, California, US; July 14, 2001

MIKE: The "largest dinosaur ever discovered" is a tricky question. There was a single, partial backbone from a sauropod (like Diplodocus) found in the late 1800s that suggested this one bone was over 6 feet high. That would have made the sauropod over 170 feet long. This bone was subsequently lost so it cannot be tested using modern methods. Argentinosaurus is the current record holder at about 130 feet this may not last long. Most dinosaur paleontologists do not like to find really big dinosaurs because it can take over 5 years to prepare the bones and over $500,000 in total costs for time and labor over the years. And then you have to have a place to store it...............

T. rex was both a scavenger and a predator. As an opportunist, it would take the easiest path to find meal. In a world where you risk death each time you get hungry, it pays to be cautious. The front limbs of T.rex were becoming what is known as "vestigial" structures. They were in the act of disappearing, from an evolutionary point of view. They were a holdover from longer-armed ancestors and by the time of T.rex they were of not much use.

Southern California has duckbills and ankylosaurs from the Late Cretaceous Period. They are rare because most of southern California was an ocean for most of the Cretaceous Period. The actual fossils are at the Los Angeles County Museum and the San Diego Natural History Museum. They were found from the 1960s to the 1990s.

Dinosaur Extinction is VERY complicated. They were going through a decline in the numbers of species when an asteroid rudely finished them off.