1. What color were the dinosaurs?
2. How (and when) did the dinosaurs go extinct?
3. Which dinosaurs were the biggest?
4. Which dinosaur was the smallest?
5. Which dinosaur was the largest meat-eater?
6. How many teeth did T. rex have (and how big were they)?
7. What is the first dinosaur ever found?
8. What is the oldest dinosaur ever found?
9. Did birds evolve from the dinosaurs?
10. What does the word dinosaur mean, what does saurus mean, and how are dinosaurs named?
11. How many dinosaurs were there?
12. What kind of habitat did the dinosaurs live in?
13. How do you know what the enemies of a dinosaur were?
14. Were there any swimming dinosaurs?
15. Were there any flying dinosaurs?

A: Only incomplete remains have been found, but Janenschia was about 80 feet (24 m) long. For more information on Janenschia, click here.

A: Click here for a page on that topic.

A: No one knows for sure. The fastest runners were probably the bird-like meat-eaters (long-legged, lightly-built theropods), like Gallimimus, Ornithomimus, and Coelophysis.

A: More than what? For a page on Moschops, click here.

A: Dinosaurs are divided into two groups based on hip structure, the Order Ornithischia (bird-hipped) and the Order Saurischia (lizard-hipped).

The Ornithischian dinosaurs were plant-eaters that had a hip structure similar to that of birds, but they were not the ancestors of birds. The pubis bone (part of the structure of the hip) points downwards and to the front in the Saurischians and points downwards and toward the tail in Ornithischians. The Ornithischian pelvis is wider than the Saurischian pelvis. This may have made Ornithischians more stable while moving. Ornithischian skulls also had small, reduced openings (antorbital fenestrae) between the eye socket and the nares (nostrils), unlike saurischians.

For more information on Ornithischian dinosaurs, click here.

A: No, because Florida was underwater during the time of the dinosaurs. The climate was warmer then, so there was no polar ice. This made the sea levels higher than they are today, and Florida was part of a shallow sea.

A: A high-altitude desert.

A: The most dinosaur fossils have been found in Asia and North America (roughly equal), Europe, Africa, South America, and then Australia. The fewest number have been found in Antarctica. This list doesn't necessarily reflect the relative abundance of dinosaurs; it mosty reflects the places that paleontologists have looked the most. For a list of dinosaur fossils found by continent, click here.

A: Megalodon probably looked like a huge Great White Shark that was more streamlined. For more information on Megalodon, click here.

A: Quetzalcoatlus was named after the Aztec feathered god Quetzalcoatl. It is pronounced KET-sal-koh-AHT-lus. For more information on Quetzalcoatlus, click here.

A: T. rex lived in a humid, semi-tropical environment, in open forests with nearby rivers. For more information on T. rex, click here. The seasons were mild.

A: I've never heard of Dactylotheuthis. For a list of the known dinosaur genera, click here.

A: The huge Jurassic period sauropods had the biggest feet, leaving footprints the size of a bathtub.

A: The smartest dinosaurs (the ones with the largest brain to body mass ratio) were the troodontids (like Troödon).

A: I have no idea, but that's a great question. Green is a wonderful camouflage color, and you'd think it would be rather common, at least in small mammals. The three-toed sloth does appear green, but the green color is due to algae colonies that live on its brown fur. The Green Ringtail Possum looks almost green (its fur is a mixture of black, grey, yellow, and white hairs).

A: For a page on digs you can visit, click here.

A: It varied quite a lot. Stegosaurus had a brain about the size of a walnut, and the huge Giganotosaurus had a brain the size of a banana.

A: That's Dilophosaurus. For information on Dilophosaurus, click here. Q: What during age did dinosaurs first appear?
from saerom park, mt.roskill, ?, ?; August 23, 2000

A: Dinosaurs evolved about 230 million years ago, during the Ladinian Age of the mid-Triassic period (towards the beginning of the Mesozoic Era).

A: You could probably check it out at your local library (I just check my library, which has 11 copies). I don't know about a new edition.

A: Most dead animals are eaten or destroyed soon after death. Only a small number of organisms fossilize. These select few were quickly buried after their death (by sinking in mud, being buried in a sand storm, etc.) and were in conditions that did not favor decomposition (for example: low-oxygen water, very dry conditions, etc.).

A: Diplodocus was longer and heavier. Diplodocus was about 90 feet (27 m) long and weighed roughly 10-20 tons; Triceratops was about 30 feet (9 m) long and weighed roughly 6-12 tons.

For more information on Diplodocus, click here. For more information on Triceratops, click here

A: Cockroaches similar to modern-day species are found in upper Carboniferous rock, roughly 300 million years old. Dinosaurs evolved much later, about 230 million years ago, during the Triassic period.

A: EQ stands for encephalization quotient. It is a ratio of the mass of an animal's brain to the mass of its body. This helps determine the relative intelligence of extinct animals. For more information, click here.

A: No one knows exactly how long Megalodon was - it is estimated to have been anywhere from 40 to perhaps even 100 ft long (a minority opinion). The largest sharks today are the whale shark (50 feet long) and the basking shark (40 feet long). For more information on Megalodon, click here.

A: The Queen Alexandra's Birdwing, which has a wingspan of about a foot. For more information on the Queen Alexandra's Birdwing, click here.

A: Many other organisms, like pterosaurs, plesiosaurs, mosasaurs, ammonites, some families of birds and marsupial mammals, over half the plankton groups, many families of teleost (bony) fishes, bivalves, snails, sponges, sea urchins and others went extinct during the K-T extinction, 65 million years ago.

Determining when an organism went exticnt is tricky because it involves NOT finding fossils of that organism after a certain point. The evidence comes from hundreds of paleontologists and geologists who find, identify, and date fossils.

A: Evolution is a process in which the gene pool of a population gradually changes in response to environmental pressures, natural selection, and genetic mutations. Organisms don't survive evolution; they are molded by its forces (natural selection, etc.) or if they are unable to adapt quickly enough, they die out.

Ichthyosaurs evolved during the Triassic period, reached their peak during the Jurassic period, and disappeared during the Cretaceous period, about 95 million years ago. For more information on Ichthyosaurs, click here

A: It sounds like it could be a femal cardinal. They are mostly gray-buff with red wine colored wings and tail, a bright orange-to pink beak (it is a short, wide bill), and a pale gray-red feather crest on the head.

A: That would explain why most of the skullls are missing (no, no, that's just a joke).

Seriously, the sauropods must have had tremendously high blood pressure in order to get blood up to the brain, but paleontologists think that their arteries may have a series of valves (like we have in our veins) that kept the blood from going backwards down the neck, and keeping the pressure even along the length of the neck regardless of position (head up or head down).

A: Yes, some early relatives of the opossum lived during the late Cretaceous period, towards the end of the time of the dinosaurs. An early relative of the opossums, Deltatheridium, an early marsupial, dates from about 80 million years ago (about 15 million years before the dinosaurs went extinct).

A: The pachycephalosaurids Stegoceras and the Stygimoloch were about the same size, about 7 feet (2 m) long), weighing roughly170 pounds (78 kg), but only the skull of Stygimoloch has been found, so this is an estimate.

A: It isn't known definitively that any dinosaurs migrated, but some (like Edmontosaurus) may have migrated seasonally, to feed and reproduce in appropriate areas (the same reason that modern-day animals migrate).

A: That sounds like Parasaurolophus.

A: Some of the many dinosaurs that lived during the very late Cretaceous period included T. rex, Triceratops, Alioramus, Microceratops, Protoceratops, Anatotitan, Ankylosaurus, Edmontosaurus, Alamosaurus, and many others. For more late Cretceous dinosaurs, click here.

A: For other K-T extinction theories, click here.

A: Megalodon was a huge, ancient shark. For information on Megalodon, click here.

A: Cynodonts are extinct animals that had had multi-cusped post-canine teeth (they had many points). Some ate meat, others were herbivores. They lived from the Permian period (before the dinosaurs evolved) until the late Triassic period (when the dinosaurs were just beginning to appear). Cynodonts (synapsids) led to the true mammals. Cynodont means "dog teeth", since their teeth looked like those of dogs.

A: T. rex is short for Tyrannosaurus rex. For more information on T. rex, click here.

A: Megalodon.

A: Cockroaches similar to modern-day species are found in upper Carboniferous rock, roughly 300 million years old. Sharks evolved earlier, during the Devoninan, over 350 million years ago.

A: I can't answer this question because it's current question on the CyberSafari quiz, but to get the answer, click here and read the page.

A: You're right; scientists used to think that some dinosaurs (like Stegosaurus and the sauropods) had a second brain at the base of the tail. They no longer think that this is true, however.

A: The dinosaurs lived during most of the Mesozoic Era. They evolved about 230 million years ago and went extinct 65 million years ago.

A: It varied tremendously for different dinosaurs. Some lived in hot, desert-like areas, some lived in lush forests, others lived in relatively cold places.

A: As an adult, Mussaurus was perhaps up to 10 feet long (3 m), weighing roughly 260 pounds (120 kg). For more information on Mussaurus, click here.

A: No dinosaur fossils have been found in Ohio. For a list of dinosaurs fossil finds, listed state by state, click here.

A: That's a really good question. I've never seen heard any discussion of this, but my guess would be that long ago, there were also many people involved in finding fossils, but only the top guy got any credit. When you read about some of the early "dinosaur hunters" and their famous feuds and bullying episodes, you can bet that they gave little credit to their less-famous co-workers. It's hard to believe that these men found so many new genera single-handedly. Perhaps the world has become more egalitarian and a bit fairer.

A: Most evidence points to the dinosaurs going extinct 65 million yeasr ago. There is one new controvertial find that seems in indicate a few survivors into the Tertiary period.

A: Japanese and Russian scientists (K. Goto, A. Iritani, and S. Zimov) are trying to combine woolly mammoth genetic material (from the 23,000-year-old Jarkov mammoth recently found frozen in Siberian permafrost) with that of a modern-day elephant. They will try to inject a cell nucleus of the mammoth into a living elephant cell in order to produce a viable embryo in a living female elephant, and eventually produce a new animal that is part-mammoth, part-elephant. This could be done again and again using the new organisms, getting closer to a pure mammoth offspring. The first problem is finding viable genetic material from the mammoth.

A: No fossilized Brachiosaurus hearts have been found, but it must have been large and powerful in order to pump blood up the long neck to its head. For more information on Brachiosaurus, click here.

A: T. rex's teeth were up to 9 inches (23 cm) long. For more information on T. rex, click here.

A: Brachiosaurus probably hatched from enormous eggs. It is not known if it cared for its young or build nests. That's about all that is known about its breeding. It may have lived in herds, but it is far from certain. For information on Brachiosaurus, click here.

A: You'll need an undergraduate degree (which usually takes four years) plus a graduate degree (usually a Ph.D., which takes 4 or more years). For more information on becoming a paleontologist, click here.

A: It could be the meat-eating dinosaur called Cryolophosaurus, which had a horn-like, upward pointing crest above its eyes (it was named by W. Hammer and W. Hickerson).

A: It's unlikely.

A: Bipedal (which means two feet) refers to an animal that walks on two legs. For example, people and T. rex are bipedal.

A: The most accepted theory (the Alvarez Asteroid Theory) is that an asteroid (or a series of asteroids) hit the Earth, triggering catastrophic climate changes, which caused many organisms to go extinct.

A: 9. Dinornis was a huge, long-legged, flightless bird that lived from the Pleistocene until about 200 years ago.

8. The earliest-known snakes date from the early Cretaceous period, about 130 million years ago (they probably evolved from lizards).

7. The oldest-known kiwi fossil is only 1 million years old, but the kiwi is thought to be quite a bit older than this.

6. Flowering plants evolved during the early Cretaceous period. Modern-day fruit-bearing tree evolved quite a while after this (during the Eocene, roughly 45 million years ago).

5. Palm trees are flowering plants and monocots, and evolved during the Cretaceous period.

4. Roses are flowering plants (angiosperms) and dicots, and their ancestors evolved during the late Cretaceous period, (97.5 to 66.4 million years ago).

3. Different shrubs evolved at different times. The flowering shrubs evolved much later (from the early Cretaceous period) than the non-flowering shrubs (like juniper).

2. Different trees evolved at different times. Oaks and maples are flowering plants (angiosperms) whose ancestors first appeared during the middle Cretaceous period. Some trees, like conifers, are much more ancient

1. I can't find when the modern-day weeping willow evolved, but it is closely related to magnolias, which evolved during the Cretaceous period.

A: A tar pit is a pool of gooey asphalt. It is created when crude oil seeps up from deep inside the Earth through a crack, called a fissure. The less dense elements of the crude oil evaporate, leaving asphalt (a very sticky mess). Water pooled on the tar, attracting thirsty animals. As an animal gets stuck in the tar, it probably attract predators. The animals' bones, teeth, and other hard parts are well-preserved in this environment (but they turn brown from the asphalt).

Tar pits are located around the world. A famous tar pit is the Rancho La Brea Tar Pit (in southern California, USA). The oldest organism (a wood fragment) found in the La Brea Tar Pit is from 40,000 years ago.

A: Plesiosaurs have been found in England, Germany, France, Japan, Kansas (USA), Queensland (Australia), parts of the former USSR, and other localities that were covered by a shallow sea during the MesozoicEra. Ichthyosaurs have been found in Nevada, Alaska, (USA), Alberta (Canada), the Canadian Arctic, China, Timor, the Alps, Spitsbergen, Greenland, Argentina, England, Germany, and other ancient sea bed areas.

A: There were lots of animals that lived before the dinosaurs, including many reptiles, fish (including sharks), amphibians (like frogs), corals, sponges, insects (like cockroaches and beetles), shell fish, and many others. Mammals evoloved about the same time as the dinosaurs.

A: FOssils have been found all over the world (on every continent), usually in exposed sedimentary rock (especially in areas like badlands).

A: Cretodus is an extinct genus of Mackerel sharks that lived during the late Cretaceous period. This shark is known only from fossilized teeth and vertebrae that have been found in Africa, Europe, and North America. The length of the teeth (from the tip of the crown to the tip of the root) is about inches (5 cm). Cretodus was named by Sokolov in 1965. Classification: Order Lamniformes, Family Cretoxyrhinidae.

A: Ichthyosaurus lived in shallow seas that covered what is now England, Germany, Greenland, and Alberta (Canada). During the early Jurassic period until the early Cretaceous period, roughly 206 to 140 million years ago, when Ichthyosaurus lived, these areas of Europe and North America were covered by many shallow seas (these shallow seas existed becasue the sea level was higher during his time, since there was no polar ice.

A: One per dinosaur. It used to be thought that some of the larger dinosaurs (like Stegosaurus and the giant sauropods) had a second brain at the base of the tail. This is no longer believed to be true.

A: Florida was underwater for a lot of Earth's history (including during the Mesozoic Era, the time of the dinosaurs). It has been home to millions of marine organisms (like teeth of Carcharodon the ancient shark, other fish, porpoises and whales, seacows, shells, other invertebrates, etc.), and later land animals like Mammuthus columbi, Cuvieronius (a gomphothere ), bears, horses, camels, protoceratids, rhinos, dogs, amphicyons, oreodonts, lizards, turtles, snakes, alligators, amphibians, birds, bats, etc.

Ohio was also under the sea for a long time. Fossils from Ohio include trilobites, nautiloid cephalopod, bryozoans, horn corals, gastropods, brachiopods, crinoids, pelecypods, Cladoselache (an early shark), Dunkleosteus, lungfish, and many other fish, mastodons, horses, and others. For a good page on Ohio fossils, click here.

For a list of dinosaurs fossils listed state by state (none from Florida or Ohio, though), click here.

A: The first fossilized dinosaur eggs (and the biggest yet to be found) were football-shaped Hypselosaurus eggs found in France in 1869. For more information on dinosaurs eggs, click here.

A: The Alvarez asteroid theory is the most widely accepted theory. For other dinosaur extinction theories, click here.

A: When you write to the list, your post will be put in the archives. For information on writing to the list (and other things you should know about the list), click here.