7 Jurassic Food Chains-Mid

Jurassic Food Chains FOCUS Question How do extinct food chains compare to food chains of today?

The Jurassic Period Imagine if you could open a door and suddenly step into the time of dinosaurs. You would find a very different world. The Jurassic Period was a time in Earth's history that lasted from about 200 to 145 million years ago. The air was hot and moist, similar to the air in today's Amazon rainforest. Pangaea—a single, huge continent—was breaking apart into the continents we know today. Earth was very different during the Jurassic Period. But just like today, the plants and animals that lived during that time belonged to food chains. Living things were either producers or consumers, and each represented a link in a now-extinct food chain.

Jurassic Life During the Jurassic Period moist air, fertile soil, and strong sunlight produced thick jungles that covered vast areas of Earth. Plants called cycads (SY-kadz) were especially common. Lush plant life (producers) supported large plant-eating dinosaurs. Insects were abundant. They provided food for mouselike creatures that lived in dense forests. In the late Jurassic Period, the feathered dinosaur, Archaeopteryx, took to the skies. It was a consumer that ate lizards, frogs, and beetles. Jurassic oceans were warm and teeming with life. Microscopic plankton provided food for fish and many other sea creatures. Coral reefs grew in the warm waters, and snails, mollusks, and fish flourished. Top predators, such as paddle-finned plesiosaurs and giant marine crocodiles, ruled the sea.

Links in the Chain The structure of food chains during the Jurassic Period was similar to modern-day food chains. Each living thing had a niche (can rhyme with hitch or leash)—a specific role within the environment. Some were producers that provided energy to primary consumers. Small primary consumers ate plants low to the ground. Taller herbivores ate leaves high in the treetops. Secondary consumers. were predators they ate primary consumers, The top predators ate many types of consumers so they influenced many food chains. Let's learn about a few Jurassic animals and the niche that each one occupied in its own food chain. Do You Know? Scientists are able to infer what dinosaurs ate by examining fossil skulls and teeth. Plant eaters had short. flat teeth designed for grinding up leaves and other vegetable matter. Meat eaters had strong. sharp teeth suited for tearing flesh.

Primary Consumers Some of the largest animals to ever live were sauropod (SORE-uh-pod) dinosaurs of the Jurassic Period. One such dinosaur was Brachiosaurus (BRACK-ee-uh-SORE-us). This massive creature stood up to 16 meters (52 ft.) tall and was 26 meters (85 ft.) long. An adult could weigh more than 75,000 kilograms (165,000 lb.) For comparison, the largest elephant weighs "only" 7,000 kg (15,000 lb.). Brachiosaurus had a long neck that allowed it to eat vegetation from the tops of lush trees such as tree ferns and cycads. Despite its enormous size, this dinosaur most likely traveled in herds for protection from predators.

Stegosaurus (STEG-uh-SORE-us) was a large dinosaur that weighed about 4,500 kilograms (10,000 lb.). It was an herbivore that fed on plants close to the ground. Because it had a short neck, it most likely ate mosses, ferns, and low-growing cycads. Along its back, this dinosaur had a double row of plates; no one knows the purpose. Perhaps they protected the animal from meat- eating secondary consumers. Do You Know? Dinosaurs were the dominant land animals during the Jurassic Period. But hiding among the leaf litter on the forest floor were small. furry mammals that ate insects.