Let’s Find Out About Triceratops

cory

Everone has heard about the Triceratops, but did you know some of these facts?

  1. The Triceratops was a herbivore, which means they ate plants!
  2. Trieratops means “three horned face” – That’s Latin!
  3. Triceratops live at the same time as the fierce Tyranosaurus Rex, and they could often get into fights!
  4. The Triceratops had many “cousin” or closely related dinoaurs that were very similar in appearance, such as the Torosaurus. Another close relative was the Nedoceratops which only had two horns.

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Let’s find out about Stegoaurus!

cory

The stegosaurus was a herbivoer (plant eater) that was about 9 meters (27 feet) long, over 2.5 meters (10 feet) tall, and weighed 5 – 7 metric tons! That’s as much as 4 or 5 cars! Stegosaurus is greek for “roof lizard” because of the plated on it’s back. This dinosaur was discovered by  Othniel Charles Marsh in 1877 and lived juring the Jurrasic period over 150 million years ago.

The stegosaurus had 17 plates on it’s back called stutes, and were used for cooling and for display. Blood would flow into the plats turning them red, possibly to attract a mate, possibly to ward of predators, possibly both!

A, mounted skeleton in right lateral view and B, laid out with missing elements reconstructed before mounting. Images copyright The Natural History Museum.

The stegosaurus had large spikes on it’s tail. They are called “thagomizers” and were named after a comic strip by Gary Larson. In the comic strip they are called thagomizers “after the late Thag Simmons”, a caveman. Of course, cavemen and the stegosaurus were not alive at the same time.

Do you have any questions or information about the stegosaurus? Please let us know, we’d love to hear from you!

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Let’s find out about… Triceratops!

cory

The Triceratops was a herbivore (that means it only ate plants) that lived about 68 million years ago. It’s name means “Three horned face” in Greek. It reached 26 – 30 feet in length and was 9 to 10 feet tall. It’s skull had a huge crest, and some skulls found were ten feet in length! Can you imagine having a head that big? It’s horns were over 2 feet long!

The Triceraptops lived at the same time as the Tyranosaurus Rex. I bet it was glad to have those huge horns to defend itself.

Since it only ate plants, it didn’t have razor sharp teeth like carnivorous dinosaurs. But it did have up to 800 teeth for chewing up bushes and leaves. If a tooth fell out, a new one would take it’s place.

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What even IS a dinosaur?

cory

Did you know that therer were many reptiles that roamed the land, sea, and air at the time of the dinosaurs that were not dinosaurs? It’s a fact! Marine reptiles are not dinosaurs, pterasaurs are not dinosaurs, and there were many giant reptiles that lived before the dinosaurs that are not coinsidered dinosaurs.

Well, how do we know what is and what isn’t a dinosaur?

An animal must meet the following criteria to be a dinosaur:

  • Dinosaurs had a hole between the eye socket and nostril.
  • Dinosaurs had a complete hole in the hip socket.
  • Dinosaurs have 3 main toes, and three main fingers

The main thing that seperates dinosaurs from other reptiles, though, is the stance. Because of the hole in their hip socket, dinosaurs have an upright stance, instead of a sprawling stance, like am iguana or an alligator.

You can find out about a lot of interesting non-dinosaurs that lived a long time ago here.
https://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/dinosaurs/dinoclassification/Notdinos.html

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Velociraptor misconceptions

cory

If you are a fan of the Jurassic Park movie franchise and book series (I am!) you might have some misconceptions about velociraptors. Let’s get some facts!

  • The velociraptors in the movies have scales and no feathers. Maybe it was the frog DNA they spliced in? At the time the first movie was made, it was not as widely known that many dinosaurs had feathers. The remaining movies had to be true to the original!
  • The velociraptors that chased Lex and Timmy around the kitchen are much bigger than a real life velociraptor. The movie version is closer in size to the Utahraptor.
  • Velociraptors did not hunt in packs! Evidence shows they were lone hunters.

One thing they got right is that velociraptors lived in the Jurassic period… unlike the T-Rex and Triceratops which both lived in the Cretaceous period.

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T-Rex’s closest relatives

cory

Fact! The Tyranosaurus Rex’s closest living relatives are chickens and ostriches! Many scientists think that they had feathers, but there’s still some debate. We do know that at least some dinosaurs had feathers because of the fossil record.

If you look a the skeletons of T-Rex, chickens. and ostriches, you can see how similar they are. On thing that’s for sure though, is the T-Rex was MUCH bigger!

Can you tell which one of these skeletons is a T-Rex, which one is a chicken, and which one is an ostrich? I bet you can!

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Argentinosaurus

cory

Fact! The Argentinosaurus is thought to be the largest dinosaur, and largest land animal, of all time! It could grow up to 130 feet in length and weigh 110 tons. It ate almost 1,900 pounds of vegetables a day! If you want to grow up to be big and strong, eat your vegetables. Of course, it also pooped over 800 pounds a day… Gross!

Find out more here!