Fascinating Facts About Dinosaur II

Fascinating Facts About Dinosaur II

1. Most dinosaurs were herbivores, which means that they ate plants.

2. The biggest carnivores were theropods from the Cretaceous Period. An example is Tyrannosaurus rex.

3. One of the largest known complete dinosaur was Brachiosaurus (“Arm Lizard”) which reached 82 ft (two large school buses) in length and 42 ft (a 4 story building) in height!

4. One of the smallest dinosaurs was slightly larger than a chicken. Compsognathus (“Pretty Jaw”) was 3 ft long and weighed about 6.5 lbs.

5. Today, only whales are close in size to the largest dinosaurs.

6. At present over 700 different species of dinosaurs have been identified and named. However palaeontologists believe that there are many more new and different dinosaur species still to be discovered. 

7. The term dinosaur (“Terrible Lizard”) was coined by the English anatomist Sir Richard Owen in the early 1840’s.

8. The oldest dinosaurs appeared on earth approximately 230 million years ago.

9. Dinosaurs had replaceable teeth; when a tooth was lost or broken, another one grew in to take its place.

10. Various dinosaurs lived on Earth for about 165 million years.  In comparison, humans have only been around for about 1 million years.

11. The duck-billed hadrosaurs (an example is Parasaurolophus) had up to about 960 teeth - the most of any dinosaur.

12. When the first dinosaurs were alive, the formation of the continents was one big super continent called Pangaea.

13. The biggest dinosaurs were sauropods, gigantic, slow-moving, small headed plant eaters from the late Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.  

14. Hadrosaur nests have been found complete with fossils of babies.  The babies have slightly worn teeth, suggesting that they were probably fed by their parents.

15. Although Stegosaurus was about the size of a bus, it had a small head (the size of a horse’s head) and a brain that was only the size of a walnut!