- Dinosaurs were animals that lived millions of years ago.
- Many dinosaurs were very big. But some were as small as chickens are
today.
- Most dinosaurs ate only plants. Some dinosaurs ate other animals.
They were meat eaters.
- Scientists aren't sure what color dinosaurs were. Some think dinosaurs
might have been as colorful as many birds are today.
- Scientists in Argentina, South America, claim to have found the world's
oldest dinosaur. This creature, called Herrarasaurus, is said to be
230 million years old.
- Dinosaurs sometimes had accidents, and fossil bones have been found
with fractures in them.
- Tracks left in the mud by dinosaurs provide clues as to how quickly
they moved.
- By measuring the distance between footprints, experts have worked
out that some dinosaurs could have reached speeds up to 25 mph.
- Velociraptor was probably very fierce. A fossil found in Utah, shows
its claws may have been up to 15 inches in length--as long as a three-year-old
child's arm. These claws formed very effective hooks with which to hold
prey.
- Dinosaur, one of a group of extinct reptiles and most hatched from
eggs that lived from about 230 million to about 65 million years ago.
The most primitive of these types, Eoraptor, was a small meat-eating
dinosaur.
- When the dinosaurs lived, the Earth's continents were jammed together
into a supercontinent called Pangaea and the Earth was warmer than it
is now.
- Dinosaurs had tiny (or completely absent) outside fingers and toes.
- All dinosaurs lived on land, although some may have ventured into
swamps and lakes. None (discovered to date?) lived in the sea, and none
took to the air
- Instead of chewing their food, some Dinosaur ground their food between
stones in a portion of the digestive tract, much like the gizzard of
a modern bird.
- Most dinosaurs had long tails, but they held these tails straight
out and off the ground for help in maintaining their balance, rather
than dragging them along the ground as had been previously thought.
- Dinosaur lifespans probably varied in length from tens of years to
hundreds of years. Their possible maximum age can be estimated from
the maximum lifespans of modern reptiles, such as the 66-year lifespan
of the common alligator.
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