Dinosaurs Facts for Kids
Roar-some facts about dinosaurs
Spinosaurus is now believed to have spent much of its time in water, using its paddle-like tail to swim and catch fish. It may have been the first known semi-aquatic dinosaur.
The smallest dinosaur footprint ever found is only about one centimetre long — roughly the size of a small coin! It was left by a tiny baby raptor.
Fossils show that many dinosaurs lived in polar regions, enduring months of darkness each winter. Some may have migrated, while others stayed and adapted to the cold.
The first nearly complete dinosaur skeleton ever found was a Hadrosaurus in New Jersey in 1858. It proved once and for all that dinosaurs walked on two legs.
Some feathered dinosaurs probably had bright, colourful plumage — like modern birds — which they may have used to attract mates or signal to rivals.
In 2005, palaeontologist Mary Schweitzer discovered what appeared to be soft tissue, including blood vessels, inside a 68-million-year-old T. rex bone — a finding that astonished the scientific community.
The heavy bony club at the end of an Ankylosaurus tail could swing with enough force to shatter the leg bones of an attacking predator.
For decades, all that was known of Deinocheirus was a pair of enormous 2.4-metre-long arms found in Mongolia. When the rest of the skeleton was finally discovered, it turned out to be a bizarre hump-backed, duck-billed omnivore.
Dinosaur fossils have been found on every continent, including Antarctica! During the age of dinosaurs, Antarctica was much warmer and covered in forests.
Kosmoceratops had 15 horns on its head — more than any other known dinosaur. Its elaborate frill was probably used to impress mates.