C.O.P.P.A The information you provide below will be used for internal purposes only. Glencoe/McGraw-Hill does not share information about you with organizations outside the family of The McGraw-Hill Companies. Before you supply any personal information below, please read our complete Privacy Policy.   Click the Techie Toolbox for tips and help to make the most of your time on the Web.   Chapter 24: The Mesozoic and Cenozoic Eras   Huge Appetites The study of how an organism interacts with its environment is called ecology. Ecology includes how an organism obtains energy from its environment. Animals do this by eating. Determining the diet of modern animals is relatively easy to do. We can observe them in their habitat and watch what they eat, or we can examine their feces. Paleoecology is the ecology of ancient organisms. Part of dinosaur paleoecology includes determining what and how dinosaurs ate. Imagine how much food some dinosaurs must have eaten! Problem How do paleontologists tell what types of food different dinosaurs ate? Hypothesis What kind of evidence might you use to determine what type of diets dinosaurs ate? What are the diets of different animals today? Think about the characteristics of these different animals. Do most meat eaters share certain characteristics? What about plant eaters? Form a hypothesis about the skeletal characteristics of plant eaters and meat eaters. Objectives Gather data and communicate interpretations about the characteristics of meat eaters and plant eaters. Form conclusions about the characteristics of plant eating and meat eating dinosaurs. Discover how sauropods might have shared food resources. Data Sources Activity Links View Student Data Find a resource that describes skeletal characteristics of meat-eating and plant-eating dinosaurs. The Activity Links lists sites with information about dinosaurs. Gather information from the Activity Links or the library about the environments that these two types of dinosaurs lived in and which dinosaurs lived in the same environments. Complete the data table below, including all information that you think is important. Visit sites listed in the Activity Links for more information on the diets of dinosaurs. Sharing Your Data Post your data in the table below for this activity. Use the additional data from other students to complete your chart and answer the Conclude and Apply questions. What part of a dinosaur skeleton is most important in determining its diet? Why? What is the likelihood that this part of a skeleton will be preserved? What are some other characteristics associated with dinosaur skeletons that help paleontologists determine what their diets were like? Which were more abundant, meat-eating dinosaurs or plant-eating dinosaurs? Why? How did sauropods share food resources? Describe the evidence used by paleontologists to determine how sauropods shared food resources. How could the same evidence that is used to determine the diets of dinosaurs be used for other animals? Huge Appetites Name Diet Skeletal Characteristics Jaw and Teeth Characteristics Size (approx.) Notes Name Diet Skeletal Characteristics Jaw and Teeth Characteristics Size (approx.) Notes Name Diet Skeletal Characteristics Jaw and Teeth Characteristics Size (approx.) Notes Name Diet Skeletal Characteristics Jaw and Teeth Characteristics Size (approx.) Notes Name Diet Skeletal Characteristics Jaw and Teeth Characteristics Size (approx.) Notes Name Diet Skeletal Characteristics Jaw and Teeth Characteristics Size (approx.) Notes Name Diet Skeletal Characteristics Jaw and Teeth Characteristics Size (approx.) Notes Name Diet Skeletal Characteristics Jaw and Teeth Characteristics Size (approx.) Notes Name Diet Skeletal Characteristics Jaw and Teeth Characteristics Size (approx.) Notes Name Diet Skeletal Characteristics Jaw and Teeth Characteristics Size (approx.) Notes Name Diet Skeletal Characteristics Jaw and Teeth Characteristics Size (approx.) Notes * City: * State: Select Your State Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware District of Columbia Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming Not Applicable * School: * required