Physiology

  1. Meat-eating dinosaurs (sometimes called therapods, meaning beast-footed) had hooked claws on their toes for ripping flesh, whereas plant-eating ones usually had blunt hooves.
  2. Therapods generally walked on two feet rather than four, which made them faster and helped them catch prey with their arms.
  3. Some dinosaur skulls had large holes in them that made their heads lighter. This was especially important for some of the larger dinosaurs, whose heads could be as big as a family car!
  4. It is thought that the reason many dinosaurs had long tails was to help with balance whilst running or standing up on their hind legs.
  5. Like lizards today, dinosaurs hatched their young from eggs. The largest eggs were the size of basketballs, and the smallest we have found are just 3cm in diameter.
  6. Dinosaurs can be divided into two groups. Saurischian means lizard-hips, and these dinosaurs had one hipbone pointing forward, whereas ornithischian dinosaurs had all hipbones pointing backwards like a bird, the word of course meaning bird-hipped. Amazingly however, scientists believe that the birds we know today actually evolved from saurischians not ornithischians!
  7. The largest herbivores had to eat a ton of food every single day - an incredible volume of vegetation!
  8. Dinosaurs’ eyes generally faced out on opposite sides of their heads (like a cow) rather than both facing forwards (like a human). This allowed them to see danger coming from a much wider angle.
  9. We believe that most dinosaurs would have had green and brown scaly skin which would have been effective camouflage amongst the trees and plants which made up their habitat.
  10. Some scientist believe that a number of dinosaurs would have shed their skin as they grew, just as snakes and lizards do today.

Pteranodon.jpg

Pteranodon