A: Plesiosaurus fossils have been found in England and Germany. They got their food using their mouth, which had many sharp teeth. For a page on Plesiosaurus, click here.

A: The Tertiary period lasted from 65 to 1.8 million years ago (starting just as the dinosaurs died out). Some animals from this period include Megalodon (the giant shark), mammals (including early horses, pigs, tapirs, cats, rhinos, dogs, rodents, bears, monkeys, apes, whales, and the first hominids, like australopithecines), modern birds, many fish and invertebrates.

A: Oviraptor was originally thought to steal eggs. For more information on Oviraptor, click here.

A: There were many different types of sauropods, including Brachiosaurus, Apatosaurus, and Diplodocus. They were all large, long-necked, long-tailed plant-eaters. For more information on sauropods, click here.

A: T. rex, Triceratops, and Protoceratops. For more late Cretaceous dinosaurs, click here.

A: Dinosaurs evolved early in the Mesozoic Era, about 230 million years ago (the first part of the Mesozoic Era is called the Triassic period).

A: About 200.

A: Most dinosaurs were plant-eaters (herbivores). For more information on dinosaur diets, click here.

A: ^% million years ago was the very end of the Cretaceous period, a time when there were a tremendous number of dinosaurs (and also the time when the K-T extinction occured). For a list of late Cretaceous period dinosaurs, click here.

A: Click here.

A: If some complete dinosaur DNA could be found then it might be possible.

A: Click here.

A: Click here.

A: There is no fossil evidence to tell us anything about this (yet).

A: Pachyrhinosaurus was about 18 to 23 feet (5.5 to 7 m) long.

A: There is no short and easy answer to this questions. Sedimentary rocks are the best types of rock in which to look (badlands and highway cuts are good places to look).

A: Triceratops was named by Othniel Marsh in 1889. For more information on Triceratops, click here.

A: No, but they are the biggest living lizard. For more information on Komodo Dragons, click here.

A: Click here for information on Woolly Mammoths.

A: There is no evicence for this.

A: The last period during which the dinosaurs lived was the Cretaceous period. For dinosaurs that lived during the late Cretaceous period, click here.

A: Pentaceratops fossils have been found in the USA (in New Mexico). No dinosaurs lived primarily in water. Pentaceratops probably lived in forested areas. For more information on Pentaceratops, click here.

A: Most reptiles have a three-chambered heart. The dinosaur nicknamed Willo (a Thescelosaurus) had a four-chambered heart with a single systemic aorta (this is like the heart of birds and mammals, who are warm-blooded).

A: Cold blooded animals (poikilotherms) don't stay warm; their temperature depends on the temperature of their environment. For example, many reptiles sun themselves in the morning to warm up. (Note: In the cladistic definition of reptiles, cold-bloodedness is not a characteristic of all reptiles.)

A: Click here.

A: Dinosaurs lived on all of the continents and in a variety of environments, including dry and wet areas, and hot and cold places.

A: No one knows.

A: T. rex's footprint was 1.55 feet (46 cm) long (although its feet were much longer, about 3.3 feet (1 m) long; T. rex, like other dinosaurs walked on its toes).

A: T. rex ate large plant-eaters like Triceratops.

A: Brachiosaurus averaged about 40-50 feet (12-16 m) tall.

A: Mostly by looking at the mouth and teeth. Animals with a small mouth and flat (or other non-sharp) teeth cannot easily catch or eat animals (think of a sheep, for example). Animals with knife-like teeth have them for a reason - catching, killing, and eating animals (think of a tiger, for example). Some dinosaurs, like Ornithomimus and Oviraptor, probably did eat both.

A: Because when T. rex was found, it was the biggest meat-eating dinosaur.

A: They were similar, but mammoths had longer tusks than mastodons, a wider head, a sloping back, flat, chewing teeth, a trunk with two finger-like projections, and were mostly taller. Mastodons evolved earlier and lasted longer in geologic time.

A: Triceratops probably ate cycads, palms, and other low-lying plants.

A: I have no idea.

A: Styracosaurus means "Spiked lizard." They ate low-lying food and used their beak to get the leaves. For more information on Styracosaurus, click here.

A: There are many different factors that can cause a species to go extinct when there is no mass extinction. Some of the factors include competition from other organisms, a food source that goes extinct (or is scarce), a slight climate change, droughts, floods (other small changes in the organism's habitat), volcanic activity, disease, etc. Most extinctions are background extinctions.

A: ANSWER

A: Click here.

A: The Permian period lasted from 280 to 248 million years ago - a time span lasting 38 million years.

A: No, I don't. I've seen estimates that Amphicoelias fragillimus weighed roughly 10 to 150 tonnes, but since only a few bones have found (and the largest has mysteriously disappeared), so take those figures with a great deal of skepticism.

A: Too few fossils have been found to make believable estimates. Read the entry on Amphicoelias in the dinosaur dictionary to see why.

A: Yes, many early, important dinosaurs discoveries were made in New Jersey. For information on these early discoveries, click here. For a list of dinosaurs found in New Jersey (and the other states), click here.

A: The first pterosaur (flying reptile) was found in 1784 in Solnhofen limestone (in Bavaria, Germany) by an Italian naturalist named Cosmo Alessandro Collini. It was first thought to be a marine animal - it was later determined to be a flying reptile and was named "pterodactyle" (by Georges Cuvier in 1809).

A: There are no real life pictures of the dinosaurs. For a picture of fossilized Stegosaurus bones, click here.

A: Comparing fossils to relatively similar modern-day animals can help you determine things like skeletal structure (how do the bones fit together), musculature (compare where the muscles attach to the bones of modern-day animals to see what the musculature of extinct one would have been like), mode of locomotion (how would a similar modern-day animal move with that type of skeletal structure), speed (given an animal of a particular size, leg length, stride, and mass - how fast it can run today is probably similar to that of its prehistoric counterpart), and just about every other quantity or quality you would like to find out about.

A: Click here for infor on how dinosaurs are named. Many dinosaurs have been found in the UK (I haven't heard of any from Ireland, however). For those discoveries (and other European dinosaurs), click here.

Q: How did the dinosaurs get their names?
from Grant B., Sulphur, Oklahoma, United States; March 9, 2001

A: Click here.

A: They couldn't adapt to the changes (in climate, vegetation, etc.) that occurred around 65 million years ago.

A: Dinosaurs lived on all of the continents. For a listing of dinosaurs by continent, click here.

A: Yes, the birds are probably descendants of the dinosaurs. For more information, click here.

A: There were lots of different plesiosaurs (all carnivores) who ate different animals and had different predators. For information on Plesiosaurs, click here.

A: Click here.

A: Horner did not discover Maiasaura (but he did name the genus and helped in the dig). Laurie Trexler found Maiasaura and Marion Brandvold found the fossilized eggs. Unfortunately, the people who find important fossils are rarely given the credit they're due.

A: Brontosaurus (now called Apatosaurus) fossils have been found in Colorado, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming, in the USA.

A: I've added it to the page on Quetzalcoatlus.

A: Click here for information on Triceratops.

A: The tallest dinosaurs were the Brachiosaurids (like Brachiosaurus), who were plant-eaters (they probably ate leaves from the top of trees) who were up to about 50 feet tall (or even taller).

A: Stegosaurus.

A: This was a rather diverse group of early amphibians that were carnivores (meat eaters) who ate different types of animals, from marine life (like fish and mollusks) to land animals (like other labyrinthodonts).

A: Click here.

A: The word carnivore means "flesh eater" and herbivore means "plant eater" in Greek.

A: It can take millions of years for the original tissues in a bone to be replaced by minerals (but exactly how long this fossilization process can take in ideal conditions is unknown).

A: There were probably many others (but many more carnnivores and many, many more herbivores). Ornithomimus was likely an omnivore. There are some paleontologists who think that Massospondylus (also other heterodonts) and possibly the protoceratopsians may have been omnivores (but there is some debate about this).

A: Troodon lived until about 70 million years ago.

A: They were apparently big enough to enable the dinosaurs to survive for millions of years.

A: Probably, but nothing is known about this with any certainty.

A: Brontosaurus means "thunder lizard."

A: The answer depends on their metabolism (which isn't known). If they were cold-blooded, they would need much less food than if they were warm-blooded (endothermic). I've seen a wide range of estimates, including: a 15 ton sauropod needing about 200 kg each day and a 50 ton sauropod needing about 50-100 kg of food each day.

A: This isn't known with any certainty, but it must have taken quite a while for the effects of the impact to finish its course - perhaps on the order of a million years (but this is just a guess).

A: They lived from about 230 million years ago until 65 million years ago (for a total of about 165 million years).

A: I'm not sure what you want. The land varied as it does today. Some areas were swampy, some were mountainous, some were dry, etc. If you want to know about the position of the continents, click here.

A: No one knows. The number of species (at a given time) isn't even known.

A: Triceratops was a plant eater that probably ate cycads, palms, and other low-lying plants. For more information on Triceratops, click here.

A: You don't know in advance, you have to search (usually in sedimentary rock) to find them.

A: One major difference was that pterodactyls (and other pterosaurs) had a slightly different (more sprawling) leg structure than the dinosaurs.

A: Yes, but they were probably simple holes in the side of the head; they did not have external lobes like we do.

A: Brontosaurus is now called Apatosaurus - for information on Brontosaurus/Apatosaurus, click here. For info on Triceratops, click here.

A: Dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago. Very primitive humans (like Homo habilis) evolved roughly 2.2 to 1.6 million years ago.Homo sapiens evolved about 400,000 to 200,000 years ago.

A: That isn't known - the amount would depend on T. rex's metabolism. If T. rex was cold-blooded, it would need much less food than if it was warm-blooded. For more information on T. rex, click here.

A: Wouldn't it be easier just to look in the section labeled Jurassic than to write me 5 times? That's why I have our search engine listed above.

A: Click here for early dinosaur discoveries.

A: Click here.

A: Ornithischians (bird-hipped dinosaurs) and saurischians (lizrd hipped dinosaurs)

A: Probably Stegosaurus.

A: Click here for a page of dinosaur extremes.

A: Stegosaurus fossils have been found in western North America (Utah, Wyoming, and Dinosaur Ridge, Colorado), western Europe, southern India, China, and southern Africa. For more information on Stegosaurus, click here,

A: None have been found.

A: For Yandusaurus, click here. For Deltadromeus, click here.

A: Spinosaurus had long, sharp teeth and claws.

A: Click here.

A: Not everything was destroyed (except in the vicinity of the impact), but a large asteroid impact could affect the climate of the entire world as dust and debris entered the atmosphere, partly blocking the sun.

A: For a page on the earliest dinosaur fossils, click here.

A: Probably.

A: Pangaea existed from the Permian through Jurassic periods. For more information on Pangaea, click here.

A: From 230 million to 65 million years ago.

A: 75,000,000

A: Hypsilophodon was a plant-eater. No one knowshow many eggs it laid or even if it made a nest. For more information on Hypsilophodon, click here.

A: See this web page: http://www.discovery.com/exp/fossilzone/sounds/dinosounds.html (thank to Brad of Woodville, ON, Canada).

A: Click here.

A: Click here.

A: !. Click here. 2. Ornithischians and saurischians. 3. About 230 million years ago, during the Triassic period.

A: None that are known. For a list of dinosaurs state by state, click here.

A: For a page on early dinosuar discoveries, click here.

A: T. rex lived during the late Cretaceous period.

A: Yes.

A: They went straight down under the body.

A: Coprolites are fossilized dung.

A: T. rex probably lived in forests, where its prey (plant-eating dinosaurs) could find plenty of food. T. rex fossils have been found in western North America and Mongolia.

A: Click here for Australian dinosaurs.

A: They probably did.

A: It is estimated the huge sauropod dinosaurs had a life span of about 100 years or so.