 A dinosaur called the Pegomastax is one of the weirdest dinosaurs known.

Described as a
cross between a parrot and porcupine, it had a beak with teeth that sharpened themselves
against each other.[1]
 In the 1993 movie, Jurassic Park, there is only 15 minutes of dinosaur footage: 6 minutes
of CGI and 9 minutes of animatronics.[9]
 One of the weirdest dinosaurs is the Suzhousaurus. Looking like a giant rat, this odd
dinosaur also had a furry body, which suggests it is a distant ancestor of the giant ground
sloth.[1]
 People have only been on Earth about 2.5 million years. Dinosaurs lived on Earth for
about 160 million years, which is about 64 times longer than people been around.[5]
 The name "Velociraptor" means speedy thief.[2]
 In 2015, scientist discovered a new dinosaur species. They nicknamed it "Hellboy"
because the stubby horns above its eyes looked like the comic book character of the same
name. They also had a "hellish" time excavating it from hard rock.[12]
 The only known example of the giant sauropod Seismosaurus appears to have choked
to death on a stone it was trying to swallow to use as a gastrolith.[5]
 A T-rex bite was more than twice as powerful as a lion's bite.[5]
 Dinosaur skulls had large holes or “windows” that made their skulls lighter. Some of the
largest skulls were as long as a car.[4]
 Dinosaurs lived on all the continents, including Antarctica.[2]
 Colorado’s nickname is the Stegosaurus State. The first ever Stegosaurus skeleton was

found near Morrison, Colorado.[7]

The biggest plant eaters weighed over 100 tons
 Some of the biggest plant eaters had to eat as much as a ton of food a day. This is similar
to eating a bus-sized pile of vegetation every day.[8]
 Though mosasaurs, ichthyosaurs, pterosaurs, plesiosaurs, and Dimetrodon are commonly
believed to be dinosaurs, they are not technically dinosaurs. The term “dinosaur” refers to just
land-dwelling reptiles that have a specific hip structure, among other traits.[11]
 While many people think dinosaurs were massive, dinosaurs were usually human sized or
smaller. Scientists believe that the larger bones were just easier to be fossilized.[10]
 Meat-eating dinosaurs are known as theropods, which means “beast-footed,” because they
had sharp, hooked claws on their toes. In contrast, plant-eating dinosaurs tended to have blunt
hooves or toenails.[4]
 Some dinosaurs’ tails were over 45 feet long. Most dinosaurs had long tails that helped
them to keep their balance when running.[2]
 Dinosaurs were reptiles that lived on Earth from about 230 million years ago to about 65
million years ago.[3]
 The earliest named dinosaur found so far is the Eoraptor (“dawn stealer”). It was so
named because it lived at the dawn of the Dinosaur Age. It was a meat eater about the size of
a German shepherd. The first Eoraptor skeleton was discovered in Argentina in 1991.
However, another dinosaur has recently been found in Madagascar that dates as being 230
million years old. It has not been named yet.[8]
 Dinosaurs are divided into two groups by the structure of their hipbones. In the hips of
saurischian, or lizard hipped, dinosaurs, one of the bones pointed forward. In the hips of
ornithischian, or bird-hipped, dinosaurs, all the bones pointed backward. Ironically, scientists
believe that birds evolved from lizard-hipped dinosaurs, not bird-hipped dinosaurs.[8]
 The word “dinosaur” was coined by British paleontologist Richard Owen in 1842. It is
Greek, meaning “terrible lizard.” Rather than implying that dinosaurs were fearsome, Owen
used the term to refer to their majesty and size.[3]

We all have a dinosaur deep within us just trying to get out.

- Colin Mochrie

 The first dinosaurs that appeared during the Triassic Period 230 million years ago were
small and lightweight. Bigger dinosaurs such as Brachiosaurus and Triceratops appeared
during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.[8]
 The dinosaur with the longest name is Micropachycephalosaurus (“small thick-headed
lizard”). Its fossils are usually found in China.[8]
 Dinosaurs dominated Earth for over 165 million years. Humans have been around for
only 2 million years.[11]
 Many scientists believe that a massive meteorite hit the Yucatan Peninsula
of Mexico 65.5 million years ago and caused the extinction of the dinosaurs as well as the
pterosaurs and plesiosaurs. The 112-mile-wide crater was caused by a rock 6 miles in
diameter. It would have hit Earth’s crust with immense force, sending shockwaves around
the world. No land animal heavier than a large dog survived. However, animals such
as sharks, jellyfish, fish, scorpions, birds, insects, snakes, turtles, lizards, and crocodiles
survived.[11]
 No one knows exactly how long a dinosaur’s lifespan was. Some scientists speculate
some dinosaurs lived for as long as 200 years.[8]

Over 500 dinosaur genera have been scientifically accepted

 Scientists estimate that there were over 1,000 different species of non-avian dinosaurs and
over 500 distinct genera. They speculate there are many still undiscovered dinosaurs and that
there may be as many as 1,850 genera.[3]
 The mass extinction of the dinosaurs and other animals that took place 65.5 million
years ago is known as the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event, or the K-T event. Scientists
have several theories for this extensive die-off. One theory proposes that small mammals ate
dinosaur eggs until the population became unsustainable. Other scientists believe the cause
was dinosaurs’ bodies becoming too big for their small brains, a great plaque decimating the
population, starvation, or climate change.[11]
 Mary Anning (1799-1847) was one of the most famous of all fossil hunters. However, she
was never taken as seriously as she should have been because she was a woman from a poor
background whereas most scientists were men from wealthy families.[2]
 Scientists believe that some dinosaurs were cold blooded, others warm blooded, and still
others not fully one or the other. Small meat eaters may have been warm blooded. Plant
eaters who were not as active were probably cold blooded. A warm-blooded animal needs
about 10 times more food than a cold-blooded animal the same size.[11]
 Explorer Roy Chapman Andrews found the first dinosaur nest known to science in 1923
in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia. Before he found the nest, scientists were unsure how
dinosaur babies were born.[10]
 The largest dinosaur eggs were as large as basketballs. The bigger the egg, the thicker the
shell. So if the eggs had been larger, dinosaur babies probably would not have been able to
get out.[8]
 The first dinosaurs were carnivores, or meat eaters. Later herbivores (plant eaters) and
omnivores (both meat and plant eaters) appeared.[2]

The name Triceratops comes from the Greek language, with tri  meaning three and keratops meaning horned
face
 Triceratops had the biggest skull with a solid shield than any other dinosaur. It was up to
6½ feet (2 m) long, with a bony shield over its neck.[4]
 In the original Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton wanted John Hammond, the park overseer,
to be a dark "Walt Disney."[9]