In-depth information on a variety of interesting dinosaurs from all around the world. Discover facts such as size, weight, range, where found, habitat, diet, conservation status, behavior and more.
Saturnalia is one of the earliest-known dinosaurs, and an important species in understanding the early evolution of sauropodomorphs – a group of dinosaurs that would eventually become some of the largest land animals the world has ever seen.
Although small, this Triassic period dinosaur had features linking more primitive dinosaurs to the later, more massive sauropods, such as Apatosaurus, Brachiosaurus, and other Mesozoic giants.
Read on to find out more about this fascinating dinosaur…
Liliensternus was a bipedal predator of the Late Triassic Period. This relatively lightweight, agile theropod would have been an effective hunter during its time.
Read on to discover more about this early ancestor of large predators such as Allosaurus and T. rex.
Dinosaurs inhabited Earth for around one hundred and seventy million years, and in that vast period of time, many different types of dinosaurs evolved and became extinct.
(Human beings have only existed for three hundred thousand years; a tiny fraction of the time that dinosaurs existed.)
In order to understand the relationships between different types of dinosaurs, paleontologists organize individual dinosaur species into groups of related species.
For example, Tyrannosaurus rex was part of a family of dinosaurs known as Tyrannosauridae, which itself was part of an even larger group of dinosaurs: Saurischia, which contained both predatory and herbivorous species.
On this page, we list the major dinosaur groups, and provide examples of dinosaurs of each type.
The recent discovery of a new dinosaur species, Daspletosaurus wilsoni, has helped scientists fill in the gaps in the evolutionary history of tyrannosaurid dinosaurs, settling decades of debate amongst paleontologists.
Humans did not live with dinosaurs; many millions of years separate the last (non-avian) dinosaurs and the first humans. Dinosaurs first appeared in the Triassic Period of the Mesozoic Era, and became extinct 66 million years ago. The first modern humans (Homo sapiens) appeared around 315,000 years ago; at least 65 million years after the last dinosaurs.
Read on for interesting facts on dinosaurs and humans (and why they never crossed paths)…
Alligators are not dinosaurs, but they, along with the other crocodilians, are the closest living relatives of dinosaurs (apart from birds, which are dinosaurs). Although alligators are neither dinosaurs, nor the descendants of dinosaurs, they are more closely-related to dinosaurs (and therefore birds) than they are to other living groups of reptiles, such as snakes and turtles.
To understand why alligators are not dinosaurs, and how the two groups of animals are related, we need to go back millions of years in the reptile family tree to the Mesozoic Era…
Gallimimus was a mid-sized theropod dinosaur that lived in what is now Mongolia during the late Cretaceous. It is the best-known and largest of the ornithomimids (“bird-mimics”), a family of dinosaurs named for their resemblance to living birds such as ostriches. With a slender, lightweight body and powerful legs, Gallimimus was built for speed and is one of the fastest-known dinosaurs.
T rex, or Tyrannosaurus rex, is a species of carnivorous, theropod dinosaur that lived in what is now the western United States during the Late Cretaceous. With an estimated length of up to 13 meters / 43 feet, T. rex is one of the largest land predators that ever lived. T-rex lived alongside several other well-known dinosaurs, including Triceratops and Ankylosaurus.
Coelophysis dinosaur facts and pictures. An in-depth guide to one of the world’s first dinosaurs…
Ceratosaurus facts and pictures. Discover a mid-sized, predatory, horned dinosaur of the Jurassic Period.
Tyrannosaurus rex dinosaur facts, with pictures and information. An in-depth guide to this famous Cretaceous Period predator.
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