Top 10 Facts About Dinosaurs:
Have you noticed that your kids are absolutely obsessed with dinosaurs? Of course this obsession is nothing new with children or adults, just look at the huge success of the Jurassic film franchise now on its 6th film, Jurassic World Dominion. But what is it exactly about dinosaurs we all find so fascinating?
Whether you’re a dinosaur fanatic yourself or are just on the lookout for some fun dino facts to share with and impress your little ones, keep reading because we’ve got 10 roarsome dinosaur facts that won’t leave you dino-snoring.
1. Dinosaurs were around in the Mesozoic Era or “The Age of Dinosaurs”.
During this era, there were 3 different periods, They were called the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods (maybe, Cretaceous Park didn’t have the same ring to it?).
2. Stegosaurus had a brain the size of a walnut.
Stegosaurus is considered likely to be the dumbest dinosaur, with a brain the size of a walnut measuring just 3 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.
Argentinosaurus was the longest dinosaur, it measured over 40 metres that’s as long as four fire engines! It was also the heaviest dinosaur weighing 77 tonnes, the equivalent of 17 African Elephants!
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 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 massive, dinosaurs were usually closer to human-sized or even smaller. Most scientists believe that the larger bones were just a lot easier to be fossilized.
7. The word dinosaur was coined by an English palaeontologist.
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?
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