For predatory dinosaurs, the Late Jurassic was an all-you-can-eat sauropod buffet

"Sauropodshumongous reptiles with a long neck and tail and thick, elephantlike legsplayed a starring role in the dinosaur ecosystem, according to a new study. These massive dinosaurs are the largest creatures to ever walk on land. But they also played a crucial part in the food chain, the study authors write, acting as ecosystem engineers. The research was published on Friday in the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin."

"By looking at fossil records from a section of the Morrison Formation in southwestern Colorado called the Dry Mesa Dinosaur Quarry, the researchers were able to reconstruct the dinosaur food chain across a several-thousand-year period of the Late Jurassic. William Hart, now a graduate assistant at East Tennessee State University and one of the authors of the paper, compares sauropods to the elephants of todaythese dinosaurs were keyston"

The Morrison Formation spans much of the western United States and dates to the Late Jurassic, about 163.5–145 million years ago. The formation preserves iconic dinosaurs including armored Stegosaurus and the roughly 30-foot-long carnivore Allosaurus. Fossil excavation in the formation dates back to at least 1876. Fossil records from Dry Mesa Dinosaur Quarry in southwestern Colorado enable reconstruction of the dinosaur food chain over several thousand years of the Late Jurassic. Sauropods, enormous long-necked reptiles with thick, elephant-like legs, were the largest land animals and functioned as keystone ecosystem engineers, shaping plant distributions and food-chain dynamics.

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