9949 Brontosaurus
This minor planet was named after Brontosaurus, a gigantic quadruped sauropod dinosaurs, which walked on all four legs and lived in the Upper Jurassic. Adult individuals measured up to 20 meters and had a weight of up to 20 tons. Many Fossils have been found in the United States. Brontosaurus is one of the best-known dinosaurs. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 20 November 2002 ().
Physiology of dinosaurs
But a preliminary study of the relationship between adult size, growth rate, and body temperature concluded that larger dinosaurs had higher body temperatures than smaller ones had; "Apatosaurus", the largest dinosaur in the sample, was estimated to have a body temperature exceeding , whereas smaller dinosaurs were estimated to have body temperatures around  – for comparison, normal human body temperature is about . Based on these estimations, the study concluded that large dinosaurs were inertial homeotherms (their temperatures were stabilized by their sheer bulk) and that dinosaurs were ectothermic (in colloquial terms, "cold-blooded", because they did not generate as much heat as mammals when not moving or digesting food). These results are consistent with the relationship between dinosaurs' sizes and growth rates (described above). Studies of the sauropodomorph "Massospondylus" and early theropod "Syntarsus" ("Megapnosaurus") reveal growth rates of 3 kg/year and 17 kg/year, respectively, much slower than those estimated of Maiasaura and observed in modern birds.