Living: The Stegosaurus got its name because of the bony plates that pointed up from its neck and back. The plates protected each hip, and four spikes pointed out from the end of the tail. The Stegosaurus was just as heavy as a rhinoceros, almost at the length of two cars and therefore the largest known plate-covered dinosaur.

By Josep Fernandez Felgueres

It was more than 2 m. (6 ft) above the hips and had elephant-like feet. It held its head low, and it ended in a toothless horned beak. Behind the beak were several teeth. Nobody knows if the tail was lifted from the ground. The fossils indicate that the Stegosaurus wandered on overgrown fields, eating of the low-growing vegetation. A conflicting idea from a paleontologist, says, that it ate of higher plants up to 3,5 m. (10.5 ft.) above the ground and that it was build to stand on its hind legs. The Stegosaurus’ high back-vertebras could have given the dinosaur the strength to lift the heavy upper body. The slim tail was more designed to be pressed against the ground than on other Ornithischids. This way, the hind legs and the tail could have worked as a tripod, but only a few dinosaur-experts agreed to that idea. The conception of the Stegosaurus’ food has also changed many times. In the beginning, the scientists said, that it had weak teeth and only ate soft things, but that theory is very doubtful today. On the contrary, the Stegosaurus’ little nose indicates, that it was very selective when it came to food, and that it might have had "favorite dishes", like the ferns’ seed and the fleshy "flowers" on the palm-like Cycadeoids.