Dinosaurs
This page is about dinosaurs in general. Other pages have dino facts and a guide on how to say dino names. You can also click on the pictures to go to other pages.
By Márcio Luiz CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Dinosaurs on DKFindout
Giraffatitan facts
|
The biggest dino?
|
Dinosaurs lived millions and millions of years ago. There were dinosaurs on Earth for millions of years. Dinosaurs were reptiles that had straight legs. Experts think most dinosaurs lived on land and some dinosaurs slowly turned into birds. Some types of dinosaurs all died (became extinct) before other types of dinosaurs even started to live. For example, the megalosaurus became extinct before the first tyrannosaurus rex was alive.
Dinosaurs weren't the first animals on Earth. The first animals were sea creatures that had no arms and legs such as jellyfish and trilobites. Later, fish with flippers were the first animals to crawl out of the water.
Dinosaurs died 65 million years ago. There are different ideas about why they died. Lots of people think dinosaurs died because a massive asteroid (a rock from space) crashed into the Earth. If a massive asteroid had hit Earth it would have made a huge hole in the ground called a crater. There is a huge crater in Mexico that experts think is about 65 million years old and could have been made by an asteroid.
Dinosaurs could not fly and none lived in water.
Nobody really knows what any dinosaur looked like on the outside. But we know a lot about their bones and some other inside parts too.
Over millions of years the Earth changed. Land moved and changed shape; the oceans changed in size. These changes affected the lives of the dinosaurs.
Nobody really knows what any dinosaur looked like on the outside. But we know a lot about their bones and some other inside parts too.
Over millions of years the Earth changed. Land moved and changed shape; the oceans changed in size. These changes affected the lives of the dinosaurs.
Triassic period: 250 million to 200 million years ago.
By Conty [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons
The first dinosaurs lived in this period, and the flying reptiles called pterosaurs appeared. Other animals were living at the same time: frogs, salamanders, crocodiles, turtles, and snakes. Arthropods appeared too including spiders, scorpions, millipedes, centipedes and grasshoppers.
Jurassic period: 200 million to 145 million years ago.
Licensed under CC BY SA 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons.
Cretaceous period: 145 million to 65 million years ago
T-Rex started life in the cretaceous period.