How could small meat-eaters bring down large dinosaurs?

Some smaller dinosaurs may have hunted in packs, like modern wolves. By working together they would have been able to kill much larger animals. Deinonychus was about the size of a...

Which remarkable 'new' dinosaur was found in 1983?

In 1983 an amateur fossil hunter found a huge claw, 35 cm long, in a Surrey clay pit. When the site was excavated, it revealed an entirely new type of meat-eating dinosaur, which has...

What did meat-eating dinosaurs look like?

All meat-eating dinosaurs were roughly the same shape, but they varied in size. They all belonged to a group called theropods (meaning 'beast feet') and they were roughly bird-shaped....

What were stegosaurs?

Stegosaurs were related to the ankylosaurs. They were plant-eaters, and most of them were large. Stegosaurs all had extremely small brains, and had to develop a mass of nerve tissue...

How did slow-moving dinosaurs protect themselves?

Plant-eating dinosaurs had three ways to escape from fierce predators. First, a plant-later might simply be too big to be brought down and eaten, for example the sauropods. Second...

Did dinosaurs need to guard their young?

The meat-eating dinosaur Velociraptor, which featured in the fm Jurassic Park, fed on small dinosaurs. A Velociraptor skeleton has been found entangled with the remains of a Protoceratops....

How big were nesting colonies?

Dinosaurs like the Maiasaurus lived in huge herds, probably containing many thousands of individuals. Their breeding colonies were probably also very large. Their nests were placed...

Where did dinosaurs build nests?

The first dinosaur nests were discovered in the 1920s in the Gobi Desert, proving that Protoceratops was an egg layer and nest builder. However, it was not until the 1980s that...

About Thomas Cromwell

Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex (c. 1485-1540) was a English politician. Originally in Lord Chancellor Wolsey's service, he became secretary to Henry VIII in 1534 and the real director...

About Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) was a English general and politician, Puritan leader of the Parliamentary side in the Civil War. He raised cavalry forces (later called Ironsides) which...

What do we know about dinosaur breeding habits?

As far as we know, all dinosaurs laid eggs rather than giving birth to live young. Many of these eggs have been fossilized, but it is sometimes difficult to find out which animal produced...

What were sauropods?

Sauropods were a group of dinosaurs that were all built to the same general design. They all had a short barrel-shaped body to accommodate the huge gut needed to digest their vegetable...

Which dinosaur behaved like a rhinoceros?

Triceratops and its relatives were large plant-eating dinosaurs very similar to the modern rhinoceros. They even had large horns like the modern animal. Members of the Triceratops family...

What was Iguanodon?

Iguanodon was a plant-eating dinosaur that stood 5 m high and was 7 m long. It was very common throughout Europe and the USA, and is thought to have lived in large herds. Unlike...

Which dinosaur was bone-headed?

The Pachycephalosaurus had a reinforced skull, which was probably used when rival males fought each other. Pachycephalosaurus was a medium-sized dinosaur, up to about 8 m long, although...

How many different types of dinosaur were there?

There were thousands of different species of dinosaur, and we have discovered only a small proportion of these. It is important to realize how rare fossils are. A few dinosaur species...

What were dinosaurs?

Dinosaurs were reptiles that evolved into the most varied kinds of any living creature. They ranged from tiny bird-like animals to monstrous beasts that were the largest animals ever...

What are reptiles?

Reptiles evolved from amphibians, but there are several important differences between these two kinds of animal. The most obvious difference in the living animals is that reptiles have...

Attack of the amphibians!

During the Carboniferous Period some 300 million years ago, amphibians multiplied rapidly and developed into many different forms. All of these amphibians were predators, feeding on...

When did fish leave the sea?

Around 400 million years ago, ancestors of the coelacanth began to creep out of the water onto the land. Many fish are able to wriggle along on land, but in order to lift their body...

Killer fish

As fish developed jaws, they were able to hunt other animals. Soon they evolved into large creatures, sometimes with armor to protect them. The most fearsome fish grew to 9 m in length. Dinichthys...

How did the Earth look in ancient times?

The Earth's surface looked similar to its appearance today, although the continents did not exist because they were still joined together in one supercontinent called Pangaea. When...

What can we learn from the fossil record?

Since life began, parts of animals have been preserved as fossils. When the animals died their remains were covered with mud and sediment that slowly turned to rock. When scientists...

Who first studied genetics?

Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) was a botanist and monk who lived in what is now called the Czech Republic. He was interested in finding out how changes took place in an organism as it reproduced....