What made these colossal creatures tick?

• Position: Paleontology - Brief article

"The World's Largest Dinosaurs" explores the biology of a group of uniquely supersized creatures: the long-necked and -tailed sauropods, The exhibition draws on research that looks, in part. to living organisms to make inferences about how these giants--some of which grew to be longer than 150 feet, or the length of four standard city buses--were able to thrive as a group for approximately 140,000,000 years.

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The exhibits--including the display's centerpiece, a life-sized, detailed model of a 60-foot-long Mamenchisaurus--take visitors beyond the bones and into the bodies of these titans, shedding light on how heart rate, respiration, metabolism, and reproduction are linked to size.

Distinguished by their colossal structure, sauropods included animals of diverse shape and ornamentation, such...