On this Page you'll find Information on Dinosaurs, Facts, Photos, Weblinks and Much More.....

               10 Dinosaur Movies

Jurassic Park........................1993

The Land Before Time.........1998

Toy Story...Rex: Played by: Wallace Shawn....1995

The The Land That Time Forgot...1918

Godzilla..................................1954

When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth.......1970

Jurassic Park II The Lost World........1997

Journey To The Center Of The Earth.....1958

Dinosaur................................2000

The Reptile...........................1966

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        10 Dinosaurs Facts

1. Dinosaurs first appeared during the Triassic period (248 to 213 million years ago), and were the dominate land animals through the entire Jurassic period, and to the end of the cretaceous period (65 million years ago).

2. We know about dinosaurs because fossils have found. The fossils, which are generally found in sedimentary rocks, including fossilized body parts (bones, teeth, skin, claws ect.) as well as trace fossils ("ichnofossils") which show how the animals lived, which include footprints, burrows, nests, toothmarks, dung, ect.........

3. The earth's continents slowly move through process known as "plate tectonics". when dinosaurs first appeared during the Triassic period, all the earth's continents were joined together in one super-continent known as "Pangea'.

4. All the familiar types of dinosaurs, died off at the end of the Cretaceous period. There are many different theories why this may have happened, but today the most popular theory is that an asteroid hit the earth, blocking out the sunlight so that there was not enough food available. Evidence for this theory is a layer of iridium, which is believed to have come from the asteroid, has been found around the world, and a possible impact site pond in southern Mexico.

5. The smallest known dinosaur is Compsognathus, which lived in Europe during the late Jurassic, and was about the size of a chicken. Compsognatus is believed to have eaten insects, lizards and other small animals.

6. There are quite a few candidates for the largest dinosaur, as there are several types of dinosaur that were over 100 feet (30 mettres) long. The largest was certainly some kind of Sauropod (a four-legged plant-eating dinosaur with a long neck) that lived during the late Jurassic or early Cretaceous period.

7. The word "dinosaur" was coined by Sir Richard Owen, who also founded the Natural History museum in London, England. "Dinosaur" means terrible lizard, and is basrd on the Greek words "deinos" (terrible) and 'sauros" (lizard).

8. People have been finding dinosaur fossils for hundreds of years, but didn't know what they were until quite recently. The first time that a dinosaur was scientifically described was in 1824, William Buckland.

9. At the same time that dinosaurs dominated the land, there were aquatic reptiles that dominated the seas, although these were not dinosaurs. These aquatic reptiles included plesiosaurs, nothosaurs, mosasaurs and ichythosaurs.

10. Although birds seem to have evolved from dinosaurs, no non-avian flying dinosaurs are known. However, at the time of dinosaurs there were many flying reptiles, known as pterosaures.

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 First dinosaur fossil found: A Megalosaurus thigh bone found in China.

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What was the first year dinosaur fossil found??? There are records that the Chinese found fossils around 2,000 years ago but did not recognized the significance of the find. In 1763 R. Brooks printed a paper on the sognificance of a fossil found by revered plot (1676) and is noted as the first "find of this type".

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How do scientists determine the actual age of Trilobites and all other fossils. Scientists most frequently use radiometric dating, in its various form, to figure out the absolute age of fossils. Except for carbon datossil. ing (which is only useful for fossils less than 70,000 years), scientists find the ratio of radioactive atoms, or isotopes, to stable atoms in rock samples. In carbon dating, the sample is directly from the fossil that species have a relatively constant mulation rate over their evolutionary history.

Paleontologists, generally use Potassium-Argon dating.

There are other forms of dating that you can look up. Amino acid raceization is based off of the reversal of the chirality (handedness) or organic molecules. John Wells of Cornell University used coral rings to find the number of days in a year when the cora was alive, then used geologically sound calculations to find its age (the Earth's spin is slowing down), so used to be more days in a year). Moleclar clock are sometimes used as a form of dating, and assume that species have a relatively constant mutation rate over evolutionary history.

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        Dinosaur Names/Meaning

Albertosaurus: "Lizard of Alberta". It was discovered in/near Alberta Canada.

Allosaurus: Strange Lizard.....because it had an unusual backbone.

Apatosaurus: Deceptive Lizard. Scientists first thought it lived underwater, because its bones were similiar to the mosasaurus, a sea creature, and because it was so heavy. They were wrong, this plant eater weighed as much as 4-5 big elephants.

Baronyx: " Heavy Claw"..........named after the first fossil found with its 11 inch claw.

Brachiosaurus: Arm lizard (brachio=arm). It's front legs were longer than its back, mostly dinosaurs back legs are longer. Remember the T-Rex???

Coelophysis: "Hollow form" because its legs were hollow. Being hollow, they were light weight so this meat eater could run fast.

Cynognathus: 

Deinonychus:

Dilophosaurus:

Dimetrodon:

Diplocaulus:

Dolichorhynchops:

Dromaesaurus:

Elasmosaurus:

Gallimimus:

Giganotosaurus:

Hesperonis:

Ichthosaurus:

Iguanodon:

Kronosaurus:

Liopleurodon:

Maiasaurus:

Megalodon:

Mosasaurus:

Nothosaurus:

Ornitholestes:

Ornithomimus:

Oviraptor:

Plesiosaurs:

Protoceratops:

Pteradactyl:

Pteranodon:

Quetzacoatlus:

Saltopus:

Spinosaurus:

Stegosaurus:

Suchomomus:

Triceratops:

Trilobites:

Troodon:

Tyrannosaurus:

Rex:

Utahraptor:

Velociraptor:

Yangchuanosaurus:

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