Dinosaurs Facts for Kids
Roar-some facts about dinosaurs
Preparing a large dinosaur fossil for display can take years of painstaking work, with technicians using tiny air-powered tools to chip away rock millimetre by millimetre. Some major specimens have taken over a decade to fully prepare.
Qianzhousaurus sinensis, nicknamed 'Pinocchio rex,' was a long-snouted cousin of T. rex found in China in 2014. Its slender jaws were very different from T. rex's skull-crushing bite, and it likely hunted smaller, faster prey.
Research on bird and crocodilian vocalisations suggests that many dinosaurs made low, closed-mouth booming sounds rather than roaring like lions. Alligators make this kind of deep, resonant sound today, and they share the same archosaur ancestry as dinosaurs.
Apatosaurus had a more muscular and heavily built neck than many other sauropods, which some scientists think it used to sweep through vegetation or even in combat with rivals. Its neck was short and stout compared to the graceful long necks of Brachiosaurus or Diplodocus.
Sinosauropteryx, discovered in China in 1996, was the first non-avian dinosaur found with clear evidence of feather-like filaments. This groundbreaking discovery transformed our understanding of dinosaur appearance and their relationship to birds.
Stegosaurus lived during the Late Jurassic period, about 155 million years ago — long before T. rex existed. If you visited the Jurassic period you would find Stegosaurus but no T. rex; they are separated by about 80 million years.
Scientists are currently discovering roughly 40–50 new dinosaur species every year, meaning our knowledge of dinosaur diversity is growing faster than ever before. Many new species come from China, Argentina, and previously under-explored parts of Africa.
Most dinosaur skeletons displayed in museums are not entirely made of real bone — missing bones are typically filled in with plaster or resin casts based on related species. Even the most famous T. rex skeleton, Sue, is about 90% real bone, which is exceptional.
Our picture of what dinosaurs looked like keeps changing as new fossils and techniques reveal unexpected details. In the last 30 years dinosaurs have gained feathers, changed posture, and even had their lip anatomy reconsidered — and there is certainly more to discover.