Back when dinosaurs existed, there used to be volcanoes that were erupting on the moon.
100 Mind-Blowing Dinosaurs Facts
Birds are the closest living relatives of crocodilians, as well as the descendants of extinct dinosaurs with feathers. This makes them the only surviving dinosaurs.
While dinosaurs roamed the Earth, they lived on every continent, including Antarctica.
Snakes and lizards both moult out of their old skin as they grow. Investigators have concluded that dinosaurs may have also moulted.
Dinosaurs would swallow large rocks which stayed in their stomach to help churn and digest food.
Humans specifically have eyes that face forward to see in 3D. On the other hand, vegetarian dinosaurs such as the Triceratops had eyes that looked out to the side so they could stay vigilant, watching for danger as they ate.
Dinosaurs that could run using just two legs are referred to as bipeds.
Scientists have no idea how dinosaurs mated.
The average dinosaur lifespan was surprisingly small. The Tyrannosaurus rex, for example, reached full size between 16-22 years old and lived up until 27-33. The largest dinosaurs such as the Brontosaurus and Diplodocus tended to live up to between 39-53 years old, maybe reaching the height of 70.
There were active volcanoes on the moon when dinosaurs were alive.
There were active volcanoes on the moon when dinosaurs were alive. Most of the volcanoes probably stopped erupting about a billion years ago, but NASA findings have suggested there might still have been active lava flow 100 million years ago when dinosaurs were still roaming.
Humans specifically have eyes that face forward to see in 3D. On the other hand, vegetarian dinosaurs such as the Triceratops had eyes facing both sides so they could look out for predators.
No one knows for sure how dinosaurs mate. It’s easy to get caught up in a dinosaur’s grotesque features, but have you ever wondered how dinosaurs mated in the first place? With all those spines and armour, how did they do it enough to roam the world before us? So far, no dinosaurs have been found with their reproductive organs intact. Until then, only cross-referencing from existing descendants (birds and reptiles) as well as computer modelling can give us hints as to how they’d done the deed.
The chicken is the closest relative to the T-Rex. Recent studies have now accepted that prehistoric dinosaurs have more in common with present-day birds than they do with reptiles. Research has found that their genetic makeup is shared more with chickens and ostriches rather than lizards.
The spikes at the end of a stegosaurus tail are called a thagomizer. This term originated and was made popular by a cartoonist named Gary Larson. The term was introduced in 1982 and has been the term for the dinosaurs’ tail ever since.
When dinosaurs roamed the Earth, volcanos were erupting on the moon.
When dinosaurs were alive, there were active volcanoes on the moon.
Dinosaurs lived on every planet on Earth, including Antarctica. The reason fossils are not prevalent everywhere is that conditions were not great to preserve remains or create fossils in many places. Scientists think there were many species of dinosaurs we know nothing about because their bones were too small to fossilize.
Velociraptors were feathered dinosaurs. If you know about velociraptors from Jurassic Park, then this may come as quite a surprise. While scientists have been able to figure out that these vicious hunters used to have feathers, the question of how feathered they were is still unanswered. It’s possible that they just had tufts of feathers on their arms, head, or possibly all over!
The word “Jurassic,” which we so often associate with dinosaurs, comes from the Celtic word for “forest.”
Gravity is also the reason why our days are getting longer. Over a billion years ago, a day on Earth lasted around 18 hours. Our days are longer now because the moon’s gravity is causing Earth’s spin to slow down. In Earth’s earlier days, the moon wasn’t as far away, which caused Earth to spin much faster than it currently does. Longer days also mean shorter years—kind of. The time it takes the Earth to orbit the sun hasn’t changed, but the amount of days within a year has. Back when the dinosaurs ruled 70 million years ago, days were only around 23.5 hours long, and a year was made up of 372 of those slightly shorter days.