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Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for November 29, 1992
November 28, 1992
November 30, 1992
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Calvin’s Mom: Calvin, what did Deinonychus eat?
Calvin: Mom, its main prey was the plant-eating ornithopod dinosaur Tenontosaurus.
Calvin’s Mom: When and where did these dinosaurs live?
Calvin: In western North America during the early Cretaceous, about 45 million years before T. rex.
Calvin’s Mom: How big were they?
Calvin: Deinonychus (“terrible claw”) weighed about 50 pounds, and was about 3½ feet tall and 10 feet long including its 6-foot tail, which was stiffened by bony tendons for balance as this theropod ran. The longest claw on each of its feet measured about 7 inches along the outer curve when the dinosaur was alive (the bony core alone was about 5⅓ inches long, but it would have been longer with the keratinous sheathe). Deinonychus had about 64 backward-facing teeth, up to half an inch long. Tenontosaurus (“tendon lizard”) was 2¾ feet high at its hips, and 12¾ feet long including its 7¾-foot tail. Its tail, like Deinonychus’s, was stiffened by bony tendons for balance. Tenontosaurus weighed approximately 270 pounds. Fossil evidence indicates that Deinonychus hunted in packs to bring down Tenontosaurus.*
*I’ve calculated this from information provided by The Complete Dinosaur (©1997) by James O. Farlow and M. K. Brett-Surman (editors) and by the The Dinosaur Society’s Dinosaur Encyclopedia of (©1993) by Don Lessem and Donald F. Glut.