Fun Dinosaurs Facts For Kids

If you're a lizard fan and love lizard facts, then we present to you the giant of all lizards. The Dinosaurs. These giant animals once ruled the earth like the deadly Tyrannosaurus Rex but they went extinct long ago.

There were numerous different types of dinosaurs like raptor dinosaurs, Jurassic dinosaurs, Triassic dinosaurs, long neck dinosaurs, flying dinosaurs, water dinosaurs, along with special dinosaurs with feathers. The dinosaur extinction was possibly caused due to a meteor that crashed on earth.

Birds are considered distant relatives of dinosaurs as birds are said to have evolved from them. If you are fascinated by natural history and all things discovered by paleontologists, keep reading!

If you find dinosaurs' facts interesting then do check out green anaconda and African fat-tailed gecko facts too.
 

Dinosaur Interesting Facts

What type of animal are dinosaurs?

The dinosaur was a species of animal belonging to the natural group or clade Dinosauria that lived 250 million years ago on earth which was referred to as the Jurassic age.

What class of animal do dinosaurs belong to?

Dinosaur belonged to the class of Reptilia of the Animalia kingdom.

How many dinosaurs are there in the world?

Currently, there are no dinosaurs left on earth. They went extinct approximately 65 million years ago. Paleontologists have discovered that there were almost 900 different species of a diverse group of dinosaurs that existed on our planet.

Where do dinosaurs live?

Dinosaurs lived everywhere around the world. Fossil remains have been found even in present-day Antarctica along with other various parts of the globe.

Approximately around 230 million years ago, during the Triassic Period, there were no separate continents on earth as the entire landmass was cumulated into one gigantic continent which was called the Pangea. Thus it can be said that the dinosaurs lived all throughout and everywhere in and around the Pangea.

These animals were mainly terrestrial i.e. they lived majorly on land.

Though few could paddle on the water, they were not found on oceans, seas, and lakes. Though giant reptile skeleton fossils remain as evidence of those ages that they were found on ocean beds, scientists have inferred that those fossil remains and skeletons were not of dinosaurs, rather they were of other marine reptiles that existed during those ages.

Other smaller dinosaurs had wings and could fly. Those dinosaurs usually resided in trees.

What is a dinosaur's habitat?

The habitat of an animal is usually marked by its ability to provide an adequate amount of food, shelter, and water i.e the basic necessities that are required for any organism to survive. In the case of dinosaurs, it was no different.

The habitat of these giant reptiles was usually swamps, forests, floodplains, riversides, and other similar places. These places provided the perfect hunting spot for predatory dinosaurs and as for those that were herbivores, they could easily eat plants that grew in surplus around water bodies.

Who do dinosaurs live with?

Excavations and fossils of dinosaurs are evidence that has suggested that dinosaurs were not necessarily solitary animals. It can be said that dinosaurs lived and traveled from one place to another in large groups. This is evident from the fossil remains that showcase numerous footprint marks and groups of dinosaur skeletons that have been discovered together.  

How long do dinosaurs live?

It is estimated that the average lifespan of dinosaurs was around 20-80 years. The lifespan was different for different species.

While the Tyrannosaurus rex is estimated to have lived for around 20-30 years, the other larger species like the Diplodocus could possibly easily survive for more than 70 years out in the wild. It is also estimated that the dinosaurs that could fly had a significantly lower lifespan.

How do they reproduce?

Dinosaurs made nests out in burrows or in bed scrapes. There they laid huge eggs which had a hard layered shell.

All the eggs were usually amniotic in nature, meaning the fetus was covered by a membrane which helped in its protection as well as supplying oxygen and other nutrients to the fetus.

It has also been discovered that while laying the eggs, the female dinosaurs underwent a physiological change where they grew an outer bone that provided the necessary calcium required to make strong eggshells.

Details regarding the mating rituals are not yet discovered and are highly unlikely. However, few dinosaur fossils have shown parent dinosaurs besides young dinosaurs or dinosaur eggs, which gives a window of thought that these reptiles took care of their offspring ever after their birth.

What is their conservation status?

Unfortunately, dinosaurs are no longer on our planet. These reptiles became extinct 65 million years ago, possibly from a meteor strike on our planet. The meteor is held largely responsible for the entire extinction of all the species of dinosaurs, along with few other factors that too played a vital role in the extinction of these fearsome beasts.

Dinosaur Fun Facts

What do dinosaurs look like?

As dinosaurs were lizards, they looked like lizards, however, they were gigantic in size. The color on their skin was usually red, yellow, purple, orange with spots in them. Each species looked completely different from one another. Few had large necks while other shad spikes on their skin.

Some had deadly teeth while others had huge tails. Even the size of the limbs was different among each species. Overall, the physiology of a particular dinosaur matched a lot with its behavior and temperament.

How cute are they?

Though dinosaurs are considered ferocious and deadly beasts, people might find a few species of dinosaurs to be cute. The Aerial dinosaurs which were feathered dinosaurs had an uncanny resemblance to the feathers of birds and thus could be considered cute and adorable by many.

How do they communicate?

There is no concrete evidence that suggests how dinosaurs communicated with one another however since they were giant reptiles we can assume that reptile behavior was followed. Scientists believe that the dinosaurs communicated with one another via visual displays. A closer study of the dinosaur skeleton fossils, especially the skull has also revealed that they made noises.

How big are dinosaurs?

The dinosaurs were gigantic creatures as were evident from the fossil bones and dinosaur remains. All species of dinosaurs lay within an approximate range of 0.68 in -141 ft (1.7 cm-40 m) in length and they had a huge height ranging from 1-60 ft (0.3-18.5 m) approximately.

Like all animals, these reptiles too had some species which were the size of a chicken while there were few gigantic dinosaurs which towered over all others.

It is often a misconception that the dinosaurs were the largest creatures that existed on the planet, however, and that is wrong. They surely were the largest terrestrial animals, but the blue whale remains the largest animal to have ever existed on earth.

How fast can dinosaurs run?

Similar to other species of animals, the speed of the dinosaur was different for each species. The larger and greater the size, the lesser was the speed. However, the average-sized dinosaur were excellent runners and are believed to be faster than humans. Estimates of their top speeds range from 22-55 mph (37-88 kph). 

How much do dinosaurs weigh?

The weight of the dinosaur was different for each different type of dinosaur and also specifically based on their size and their diet. The weight of the dinosaur was in a range of 6.5-169,756 lb (2.5-77,000 kg). From tiny species about the size of chickens to the gigantic Diplodocus, our earth had witnessed some of the most exquisite creatures.

What are their male and female names of the species?

There is no name that differentiates between male and female dinosaurs based on their sex. However, these animals had sexual dimorphism i.e. males and females were different from each other in terms of shape, size, and colors.

What would you call a baby dinosaur?

Since dinosaurs hatched from eggs, we can use the generalized term which is used for all reptiles in the case of dinosaurs too. A baby dinosaur can be called a hatchling or a nestling. Theropods had a very close resemblance to birds and thus a baby Teropod could be referred to as a chick.

What do they eat?

Different species of dinosaurs had different food habits. The majority of dinosaurs were either carnivorous dinosaurs or herbivore dinosaurs which were plant-eating dinosaurs, while a few species are discovered to be omnivore dinosaurs.

The herbivores usually fed on various plants and trees but not on grass which didn't develop back then around 245 million years or 150 million years ago.

The carnivores preyed on other lizards, smaller dinosaurs, and the earliest of mammals that had barely evolved then. The rest were scavengers and fed on the dead and the leftover carcasses.

Are they dangerous?

The carnivorous and predatory dinosaurs were extremely dangerous. These animals hunted in groups and took part in aggressive hunting behavior which was common in Theropods. Dinosaur fossils and bite marks suggest they usually bit the head and neck with their long sharp and powerful teeth to inflict maximum damage on their prey.

Would they make a good pet?

The last dinosaurs went extinct around 65 million years ago. However, if you ever find average-sized, non - aggressive herbivorous living dinosaurs, please call the scientists, as well as the Federal Services, as that would be the most remarkable discovery of the century.

Did you know...

The literal translation of the word dinosaur means 'terrible lizards'.

Though the dinosaurs had huge skulls, the size of their brain was very small. They were about as intelligent as reptiles of this age.

Plateosaurus was the first dinosaur fossil discovered.

Insects like millipedes existed before dinosaurs.

Micropachycephalosaurus was the longest-named dinosaur in the world.

Drawing a dinosaur-like Tyrannosaurus rex aka T-Rex is pretty easy and involves a few steps. Draw an oval.

Draw the head followed by the tail at two ends of the oval. Draw two legs from the bottom of the oval and two small arms from the middle of the oval. Add minor details like eyes, teeth, and nails, and voilà you are done!

Which dinosaur had three horns?

The Triceratops was the dinosaur which had three horns in their head. It is believed that they used their powerful horns to fend off attacks from other predatory species like the T-Rex.

Where did the meteor that killed the dinosaurs land?

About 65 million years ago, the earth was hit by a huge meteor which is said to have caused the mass extinction of dinosaurs. Located in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, it is named the Chicxulub crater. This crater measures 93 mi (150 km) wide and 12 mi (20 km) in depth.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly animal facts for everyone to discover! Learn more about some other reptiles including crocodilians, or Burmese python.

You can even occupy yourself at home by drawing one on our dinosaur coloring pages.