What was the typical life span of a dinosaur?

[admin]

What was the typical life span of a dinosaur? It depends on the size and species, of course.

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[Jan Steinman]

I did not see "lack of care of offspring" among the reasons cited for short nonavian dinosaur lives.

Being directly responsible for propagating one's genes by caring for offspring is likely to be a heritable trait. This is so strong that most animals do not live long beyond their reproductive years. The exceptions — notably humans, but also others, such as elephants — live beyond their reproductive years by being a part of their grandchildren's care and survival, thus propagating such an adaptation.

There's additional evidence in species such as orcas, in which female grandparents help care for grandchildren, but males do not. Male orcas live but two generations — about 40 years, but female orcas live three generations, to about 60 years.

As egg-bearing animals, dinosaurs might be characterized with lack of care for offspring. Does this mean the large sauropods, which are thought to have lived 60 years, had live offspring, or perhaps they cared for hatchlings better?