1. Dinosaurs were around in the Mesozoic Era or “the Age of Dinosaurs”.
The Mesozoic Era is the penultimate era in Earth's geological history. During this era, there were three different periods, they were called the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods (Cretaceous Park doesn't really have the same ring to it).
2. Stegosaurus had a brain the size of a walnut.
Stegosaurus can be considered the dumbest dinosaur, with a brain only slightly larger than a walnut, measuring just three centimetres long and only weighing 75 grams.
A newborn human baby actually has a bigger brain than most adult dinosaurs had.
3. The longest dinosaur was over 40 metres long.
Before 2021, it was thought that Argentinosaurus was the longest dinosaur. It measured over 40 metres - as long as four fire engines! It was also the heaviest dinosaur weighing 77 tonnes, the equivalent of 17 African Elephants.
But research now suggests that Supersaurus could have been the longest dinosaur. Scientists fixed a fossil mix-up and have since discovered that Supersaurus was at least 39 metres, but most likely reached 42 metres from snout to tail!
4. Some dinosaurs swallowed rocks to help grind up their food.
That’s right, dinosaurs often swallowed large rocks on purpose! These rocks then stayed in their stomachs and helped them to grind up their food.
5. A cheetah could outrun any dinosaur.
Slim dinosaurs such as Compsognathus and Ornithomimus were some of the fastest dinosaurs, however, today's cheetah can run faster than any dinosaur that existed.
6. Most dinosaurs weren’t as big as you expect.
While most people think of dinosaurs as being these huge beasts, dinosaurs were usually closer to human-sized or even smaller. Most scientists believe that the larger bones were just a lot easier to be fossilised.
7. The word dinosaur was coined by an English paleontologist.
In 1842, Sir Richard Owen came up with this name after he had seen lots of dinosaur fossils being uncovered.
He realised that all the fossils were linked in some way and came up with the name dinosaur or dinosauria. Derived from the Greek words deinos, meaning “terrible, horrible, great,” and sauros, meaning “lizard” (basically, he called them horrible lizards and it stuck).
8. The longest dinosaur name is Micropachycephalosaurus.
The name Micropachycephalosaurus means "tiny thick-headed lizard" (let’s hope that one doesn’t come up on a spelling test). The smallest dinosaur name is actually Yi consisting of only 2 letters, that’s 22 less letters than Micropachycephalosaurus!
9. So far, 108 species of dinosaurs have been discovered in Britain.
Britain was a pretty important area during the Mesozoic Era, it acted as a bridge for migrating dinosaurs between North America and Eurasia. British dinosaurs included Megalosaurus, Iguanodon, Neovenator, Eotyrannus, and Cetiosaurus.
10. When an asteroid hit they became extinct.
This one won’t come as a surprise to any dinosaur fan but around 66 million years ago dinosaurs became extinct when an asteroid hit Earth making lots of dust and dirt rise into the air.
The dust and dirt blocked the sun and made the Earth very cold, the main theory for dinosaur extinction is that once the climate changed dinosaurs could not survive in the cold.
However, many scientists believe that because birds are a kind of dinosaur, due to sharing a common ancestor with non-avian dinosaurs, that dinosaurs are, in fact, not actually extinct!
Did you discover a dinosaur fact you didn’t know?
Hopefully both you and your little one learnt something new about dinosaurs! It's important to encourage education in kids and learning about something they are a fan of makes it all the more fun and embeds it in their brains.
And if your little one is a big fan of dinosaurs, check out our huge range of dinosaur toys, books, games and crafts online and in-store now!
