Q: i am doing a fossils projectand can you help me with this question please
what can scientists learn from fossils? on a map label where fossils have been found in Australia and what they were of? thankyou
from martin f, melbourne, victora, Australia; September 15, 2001

A: Much of what is known about dinosaurs (and other long-extinct organisms) is discovered by studying fossils. For a list of fossils found in Australia and where they were found, click here (you'll have to draw your own map). Fossils are made of rock-like minerals, like silicates and calcium. For a page on how fossils form, click here.

A: For more information on the earliest dinosaurs, click here.

A: I'm not sure what you mean by "type." Millions and millions of fossils have been found.

A: Paleontologists study ancient life, generally by examining fossils.

A: Chasmosaurus fossils have been found in Alberta, Canada and Texas, USA. For a page on Chasmosaurus, click here.

A: Many dinosaurs probably lived in that area, but paleontology research in Iran is not going on due to the political situation there. I don't know about alligator fights.

A: Dinosaurs appeared during the Triassic period (about 230 million years ago) and the last of the dinosaurs went extinct during the late Cretaceous period (about 65 million years ago during the K-T extinction).

A: Click here.

A: Atlascopcosaurus, Timimus, and Rapator have been found in Australia.

A: Right. Mammals evolved about the same time that dinosaurs appeared (during the Triassic period, about 230 million years ago). The mammals that lived during the time of the dinosaurs were tiny, primitive mammals that looked a bit like mice.

A: T. rex was discovered by Barnum Brown in 1902. For more information on T. rex, click here.

A: The dinosaurs went extinct about 65 million years before people evolved, so cavemen never saw dinosaurs. Cavemen did hunt animals like saber-tooth tigers and woolly mammoths.

A: Click here for dinosaur names that start with an "S."

A: A HREF="/subjects/dinosaurs/glossary/indexh.shtml#Hypsibema">Hypsibema, Lophorhothon, and Zatomus have been found in North Carolina.

A: The Cretaceous period was a period of geologic time during which many of the dinosaurs lived (including T. rex and Triceratops). The Cretaceous period lasted from 144 million years ago until 65 million years ago.

A: Some meat-eating dinosaurs probably evolved into the birds.

A: About a thousand genera of dinosaurs have been discovered so far.

A: Click here.

A: Tsintaosaurus' crest may be an artifact of the fossilization process or the nasal bone bone upturned, but no one knows with any certainty.

A: The blue whale.

A: Dinoetrodon was a meat-eater (a carnivore). It probably ate other pelycosaurs (its close relatives), insects, and other animals. For more information on Dimetrodon, click here.

A: The exact time of its extinction is a much-debated topic. For more information on Megalodon, click here.

A: No one knows the answers to any of these questions.

A: Click here.

A: The Komodo Dragon has disease-ridden bacteria in its mouth. After it bites its prey, the victim will sicken and die from blood poisoning within a day or two. For more information on the Komodo dragon, click here.

A: Scaphonyx means "canoe claw."

A: For a page on Brachiosaurus with all this information, click here.

A: Leaellynasaura was named after the daughter (Leaellyn) of the paleontologists who discovered it, Pat and Rich Vickers. For information on Leaellynasaura, click here.

A: Archaeopteryx is important because is the oldest-known bird. For information on Archaeopteryx, click here.

A: Dinosaurs, mammals and other new animal groups evolved during the Triassic period because of the Permian mass extinction, which immediately preceded the Triassic period. The Permian extinction was the biggest mass extinction that ever occured on Earth, wiping out most of the existing families of animals and plants on Earth. This natural disaster left many open niches for new types of life to evolve, and they did.

A: The first dinosaur fossil found in the US was a thigh bone found by Dr. Caspar Wistar, in Gloucester County, New Jersey, in 1787 (it has since been lost, but more fossils were later found in the area). For a page on the earliest dinosaur finds, click here.

A: Fossilized dung is called coprolite, and the appearance of coprolites varies (it depends on the surrounding soil and what minerals have replaced the original material).

A: For a page of Australian dinosaurs, click here.

A: In the Jurassic Park movies, the dinosaur Dilophosaurus is pictuered with a frill, but there is no evidence that it had one in real life (nor is there any evidence that it spat poison).

A: T. rex stands for Tyrannosaurus rex. T. rex was one species of the genus Tyrannosaurus (and the type species for the genus). For a list of the species belonging to the genus Tyrannosaurus, click here. I don't know of a link to the 3-year-old that found a dino egg.

A: It isn't certainl what the exact average sizes are of most dinosaurs, but other huge meat-eating dinosaurs include Spinosaurus, Carcharodontosaurus, Bahariasaurus, and Giganotosaurus.

A: Megalodon was a huge, ancient shark that lived in the seas. For a page on Megalodon, click here.

A: An invertebrate is an animal without a backbone. For a page on invertebrates, click here.

A: It varied tremendously among the dinosaurs (remember that the dinosaurs varied in size from the size of a chicken to bigger than a house). For a page on dinosaur intelligence, click here.

A: Very primitive theropods (meat-eating dinosaurs) like Eoraptor, Staurikosaurus, Saltopus, and Frenguellisaurus had five-fingered hands.

A: For information on the rhynchosaur Scaphonyx, click here.

A: The tallest dinosaurs are:

• Sauroposeidon(Wedel, Cifelli and Sanders vide Franklin, 2000), a newly-found brachiosaurid from Oklahoma, +60 tons, 60 feet tall.
• Ultrasauros(Jensen vide Olshevsky, 1991) - 100+ feet long (30 m), +80 tons
• Brachiosaurus (Riggs, 1903) - about 85 feet long (26 m), 40 feet tall, and weighed 70-80 tons.

A: Dinosaurs appeared during the Triassic period (about 230 million years ago) and the last of the dinosaurs went extinct during the late Cretaceous period (about 65 million years ago during the K-T extinction).

A: It varied during the Mesozoic Era (when the dinosaurs lived). The Triassic period (the early part of the Mesozoic) was, for the most part, dry and desert-like. The Jurassic period (the middle part of the Mesozoic) was generally warmer and more tropical than it is now. The Cretaceous period varied.

A: Pterodactyls were flying reptiles that were closely related to dinosaurs (but were not dinosaurs). For a page on pterodactyls, click here.

A: Deltadromeus was a coelurosaur (a fast-running advanced theropod) related to Ozraptor, Piveteausaurus, Bagaraatan, Beelemodon, etc.

A: For a page on Megaraptor, click here. Only one (incomplete) Utahraptor has been found, so it is unknown whether or not it hunted in packs. Utahraptor lived millions of years before T. rex evolved; they never met.

A: Yes, For a information on reptiles, click here.

A: So far, Albertosaurus, Ankylosaur (unknown genus), Edmontosaurus, Pachycephalosaurus, Pachyrhinosaurus, Saurornitholestes, Thescelosaurus, and Troödon have been found in Alaska. For a list of dinosaur finds listed state by state, click here.