Dinosaurs get a lot of attention these days, but what do you really know about the mysterious creatures that ruled the Earth millions of years ago? I bet I can tell you a few things you didn’t know about the triceratops and its dino friends. For instance:
Why are they called dinosaurs?
The word “dinosaur” comes from two Greek words that together mean “terrible lizard.” They were first called “dinosauria” in 1841, when a scientist named Richard Owen used it to describe fossils he was studying. Dino names come from Greek and Latin words that describe them. Tyrannosaurus Rex, the vicious meat-eater, got its name from the Greek “tyrannos,” meaning “tyrant,” and “rex” is the Latin word for “king.” They also got their names from places that their fossils were found. And by the way, triceratops was a plant-eater with three horns on its face, hence the name.
Dinosaurs got big from eating their vegetables!
The big, mean predators like the T-Rex get all the starring roles – but most dinosaurs lived on plants, trees, flowers and even moss. Back millions of years ago, the world was much hotter, with more of the carbon dioxide that plants use as food, so the planet was one giant tropical forest. There was lots of stuff to eat and dinosaurs ate so much of it they got to be gigantic. The biggest dinosaur was the Argentinosaurus (found in Argentina, of course), which was 120 feet long (think of 10 cars lined up bumper to bumper) and weighed 100 tons, as much as a dozen elephants. So eat your vegetables and get healthy and strong like a dinosaur.
A big space rock killed the dinosaurs!
Scientists still debate about how the dinosaurs became extinct, whether it was climate change or a collision with a celestial boulder. The climate theory has been around for a long time, but now it’s looking more like a meteor, asteroid or comet crashed to Earth, put a hole a hundred miles wide in what is now northern Mexico – and the impact caused tsunamis that washed over the continents, earthquakes that shattered mountains and volcanoes that erupted for days. The beasts that lived through the collision died from drowning or breathing the smoke and dust that enveloped the world. In fact, scientists believe that there was so much dust that the sun was blocked out for years, which killed the remaining plant life so there was nothing left to eat.
Birds are actually modern-day dinosaurs!
After feathered fossils were found in China during the 1990s, the idea that birds came from dinosaurs really started to appeal to paleontologists (people who study fossils) and evolutionary biologists, who examine the world’s diversity of life. Now most scientists agree that the dinosaurs that lived, while the rest went extinct, eventually evolved into birds. Think of that the next time you see a hawk swoop down and catch a squirrel or rabbit!
Dinosaurs roamed the Earth for millions of years!
How they became extinct so quickly gets the big headlines, but considering that dinosaurs were around for more than 150 million years, stegosaurus and the rest currently hold the record as the most long-lived creatures in history. Do you think people will last as long?
Tommy Barker is a creative writer who loves instilling a thirst for knowledge in children. He suggests the site dinosaurs for kids for more information on this subject.