7 Fun Dinosaur Facts To Impress Your Kids With

Sunday, July 26, 2020

Kids love learning about dinosaurs. Now you can tout your own knowledge and impress the kids with these fun dinosaur facts!

If your child is like the majority of most young kids, then chances are your child finds dinosaurs absolutely fascinating. After all, who isn't impressed with these large, incredible creatures who roamed the Earth millions of years ago? Dinosaurs are incredible!

With shows like Dino Dana and Dinosaur Train, our kids pick up tons of dino facts that they love to share with us. Luckily, though, you can tout your own knowledge and impress the kids with these fun dinosaur facts!

7 - Turns Out The T-Rex Wasn't Actually The Dinosaur King; That's The Spinosaurus

That's right: Scientists now believe that the Spinosaurus was the largest carnivorous (meat-eating) dinosaur to exist. In fact, experts say this dinosaur was somewhere between 41 and 59 ft long and weighed up to 23 tons!

The Spinosaurus, which looked like a massive crocodile, lived both on land and in water in a region of modern-day North Africa during the Cretaceous Period, which occurred about 70 to 145 million years ago.

6 - Not All Dinosaurs Were Big, Either

Although most people believe that all dinosaurs were huge, that's not actually the case. In fact, some dinosaurs, like the Compsognathus, were actually about the same size as a chicken! Furthermore, most dinosaurs were no larger than the size of a small car, making them similar in size to rhinos and other modern mammals.

5 - Not Everything That Lived During The Age Of Dinosaurs Was Actually A Dinosaur

Species like the Pterodactyl and Plesiosaur lived at the same time as dinosaurs, but scientists say that those creatures weren't actually dinosaurs. Instead, Pterodactyls were flying reptiles that lived during the age of dinosaurs and Plesiosaurs were actually water-based reptiles.

Furthermore, many reptiles actually pre-date reptiles dinosaurs. In fact, archosaurs and therapsids lived well before the first dinosaurs appeared nearly 230 million years ago.

4 - Turns Out The Apatosaurus And Brontosaurus Are The Same Dinosaur

That's right: The Apatosaurus is actually the "correct" name for the well-known Brontosaurus. Othniel Charles Marsh first discovered Apatosaurus bones back in 1877. Then, when he later found a larger set of similar bones, he falsely assumed that he'd discovered a new species. However, scientists later determined that the second set of bones were just bones of an adult Apatosaurus. By the time this discovery was made, the name Brontosaurus had already caught on, and it's only been in recent years that there's been a widespread effort to correct terminology.

3 - The Movie Jurassic Park Didn't Do The Velociraptor Justice

Although the Velociraptor does have some terrifying claws, the dinosaur was actually a lot smaller than they portrayed in the movie Jurassic Park. In fact, the tiny carnivore was actually closer to the size of a turkey than a human, with a fully-grown Velociraptor only standing about 6 ft tall and weighing just 33 pounds!

Furthermore, many scientists believe that the Velociraptor had feathers and actually used its hind claws to tear apart its prey, not its front ones.

2 - Stegosaurus Plates Aren't Actually Part Of Their Skeleton

Most of us know that the stegosaurus was a large herbivore dinosaur with plates along its spine. However, scientists have since discovered that Stegosaurus plates actually rose out of the dinosaur's skin, meaning they were not attached to the spine or other part of the Stegosaurus' skeletal frame.

Another fun fact about the Stegosaurus: Although they were some of the largest dinosaurs to ever walk the Earth, their brains were only about the size of a modern dog's brain!

1 - Over 1,000 Unique Species Of Dinosaurs Existed

We've known about dinosaur fossils for a long time, but efforts to really discover and  study fossils didn't really take off until the early 19th century. Since that time, though, paleontologists have named over 1,000 different species of dinosaurs... and the list continues to grow as they continue to discover new fossils. In fact, paleontologists have discovered dinosaur fossils on every continent of Earth, including Antarctica!

Obviously we could spout of dinosaur facts all day long, but who likes a know-it-all? While you may not want to go overboard with your new-found dino knowledge, your kids will love the information about some of the world's most fascinating creatures. Enjoy the dinosaur obsessions while they last, moms!

Source: www.moms.com/