Four Dinosaur Skulls Reveal Sauropod Dinosaur

University of Michigan dinosaur expert Jeffrey Wilson explained the reason scientists think sauropods may have swallowed food whole: “If you have a tiny skull and you’re trying to feed a big body, you’re wasting time if you’re trying to process the food in your mouth.”

Unlike many other plant-eating dinosaurs, sauropods do not appear to have had specialized equipment for chewing plant material. Triceratops and some other dinosaurs had pointed “beaks,” for example, which helped cut vegetation. Instead, sauropods like Abydosaurus had relatively narrow teeth, apparently not suited for extensive chewing.

Brigham Young University paleontologist Brooks Britt, one member of the study, commented, “They didn’t chew their food; they just grabbed it and swallowed it.

Interpreting dinosaur behavior from fossils is a challenging endeavor, and necessarily involves at least some assumptions. For example, it’s possible if scientists could go back in time to observe sauropod feeding behavior, they would see an unexpected behavioral or anatomical element that allowed them to chew their food. Similarly, presuppositions are required when evolutionary scientists infer that some dinosaurs’ frightening teeth were originally used to eat flesh (whereas the Bible indicates that no creatures ate meat originally). In addition to changes that could have happened at the Fall and after, such conclusions ignore the fact that without being there, we can’t say for sure. And when the Bible says otherwise, we can trust God’s firsthand account.