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By: Ikedi Ani-okoye.

Introduction to Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs are well-known and well-loved by children of all ages, but the name still means different things to different people. While that is true that dinosaurs were real and live animals that lived in most regions of the world yet died out 65 million years ago, there is still a lot of doubt surrounding their nature and their ways of life since no man has ever seen a living dinosaur.

There is also little proof that dinosaurs lived with or were tamed by our prehistoric ancestors, contrary to what is shown in some TV shows and comic strips. We only know of their existence by their remains, usually documented in bones, either found as complete skeletons or separately. We have also found their footprints in rock, as well as some eggs embedded in them. Most of the bigger dinosaur specimens have now been collected and displayed in larger museums.

Dinosaur information

Dinosaurs were land-living reptiles and inhabited rivers, cakes and swamps. They were divided into flesh eaters and plant eaters. Some of them walked on to hind legs, while others walk on all fours. Most species had scaly skins, but some had prominent bone plates on the body or even had heavily armored heads.

The origin of dinosaurs has been attributed to a small reptile known as a "pseudosuchia" or a kind of "false crocodile". Often, such creatures were only 2 feet long and half of their bodies were made up by the tail alone. The larger dinosaurs are said to have evolved from one or more of these little false crocodiles. Even the flying reptiles, or pterodactyls, have been connected to the small reptiles.

Dinosaur facts

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

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

There are quite a few candidates for the largest dinosaur, as there are several types of dinosaur that were over 100 feet (30 metres) 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.

CONCLUSION

Many museums are also seeing this research and wondering if they should change the way they display dinosaur skeletons. Until now they have displayed the bones of the spine close to one another.