Rajasaurus
Late Cretaceous
IndiaTITANOSAURUS
Late Cretaceous
AsiaCaudipteryx
Early Cretaceous
Asia66
Some dinosaurs had a
mixture of dinosaur-
like and bird-like features
Birds are descended from small theropods.
They walked upright on two legs and fossil
evidence shows that some of them had feathers.67
Dinosaurs lived in a
changing world
Around 250 million years ago, all of Earth’s
landmasses were joined in a supercontinent known as
Pangaea. During the reign of the dinosaurs, this
landmass split apart, fi rst into two and then into the
seven continents we see today.63
Armoured dinosaurs are
known as ‘Thyreophora’
Stegosaurus and Ankylosaurus are famous for their
armour plating and were members of a group of
dinosaurs called Thyreophora. Anklosauria were the
most heavily armoured and had bony plates, spikes
and clubbed tails.65
Some dinosaurs
swallowed rocks
Many plant-eating dinosaurs have been found with
groups of rounded stones inside their ribcages,
indicating they swallowed stones to aid digestion, like
modern birds.64
Dinosaur’s legs
are positioned
beneath their bodies
Crocodiles and lizards walk with their
legs out to the sides, but dinosaurs
have their legs underneath their
bodies, allowing them to run faster.Minmi
Early Cretaceous
Australia76
The longest
dinosaur name
has 23 letters
Micropachycephalosaurus means ‘tiny
thick-headed lizard’. It might have the
longest name, but it was only about 1m
(3.3ft) long.69
Some
herbivores had
self-sharpening teeth
As their jaws closed, the teeth of
some plant-eating dinosaurs would
grind against each other, wearing the
surface into a sharp point.70
Hadrosaurs
had the
most teeth
The duck-billed dinosaurs had
up to 50 rows of teeth stacked
on top of one another, making a
total of over 1,000.68
Paleontologists
study fossils
Scientists that study dinosaur remains
are known as palaeontologists.
Anthropologists study human remains,
and archaeologists study artefacts.DINOSAURS’ LEGACY
101 dinosaur facts