Dilophosaurus
by Hannah D.
The dilophosaurus was a double crested dinosaur that was 20 feet tall and weighed 700 to 1,000 pounds. The dilophosaurus has two bony crests on its head; it has two legs and two short arms. The dilophosaurus lived on land and ate small dinosaurs.
The dilophosaurus has evolved from many animals in order to become the dinosaur it is now. The dilophosaurus has evolved from the following: vertebrates, making it have a vertebral column and braincase, to gnathostomes, which allowed the dilophosaurus to have jaws, tetrapods, that is how the dinosaur got four limbs, amniotes, allowing it to have watertight eggs, sauropsids, making it have a pair of openings in the palate, then it became a dinosaur, allowing it to have a hole in the hip socket, saurischian dinosaur, this allowed it to have a grasping hand, lastly it became a theropod, allowing it to have a three-toed foot. The dilophosaurus came along during the early Jurassic period, which was 200 years ago.
The dilophosaurus is most closely related to the tyrannosaurus, struthiomimus, deinonychus, archaeopteryx, and seagull. The animals all have two pairs of air space in their neck bones, and they all have the three-toed hind feet. The difference is that the dilophosaurus had short arms and the other animals had long arms. The cladogram helped answer these questions because by following its branch to the first node. The rest of the animals that branched off from that node are most closely related to the dilophosaurus.
Last updated April 7, 2007.