Elinor Szabunka, age 13, of Somerville, Mass.,, for her question: '

What is a stegosaurus?

This animal is no longer with us, for he was a dinosaur, one of those giant reptiles which said goodbye to the world some sixty million years ago. Though they perished, the dinosaur s were not unsuccessful animals. They ruled the world for more than a million years. Compared with them, our history has dust begun.

The stegosaurus was a sizeable fellow, bigger than a truck. He had a high humped back: and rather short sturdy begs. Like all the dinosaurs, he had a ,small head and was short of brain. Some of the dinosaurs were fighters: This fellow, like the turtle, trusted to a coat of armor. His tail was armed with sharp spears. Over the hump of his back he had a row of sharp triangular plates. He may have been too clumsy to attack, but the stegosaurus, could certainly protect himself.