All About Dinosaurs
Fun Facts!
The Stegosaurus is Colorado's State Dinosaur!
Spinosaurus, Giganotosaurus, and Tyrannosaurus are in competition for the biggest theropod!
Superasaurus was the longest sauropod at about 120 feet and Barosaurus was the tallest sauropod at about 72 feet.
The biggest pterosaur was Questzelcoaltus with a wingspan of about 35 feet!
Stegosaurus and Tyrannosaurus was about 60 million years apart from each other.
Limusaurus, a ceratosaurid, ate meat as a child. As it lost its teeth as an adult, it developed a beak; being either an omnivore or a herbivore. This is a very rare phenomenon.
Antarctica was a lush, tropical continent in the time period of the dinosaurs. It had many fossils such as Mosasaurus, Cryolophosaurus, and Antarctopelta!
The largest octopus ever discovered was Nanaimoteuthis Haggarti which was about 62 feet in length. Thats about as big as a sperm whale! It hunted large marine reptiles too!
Unlike the Jurassic Park movies, Velociraptor was actually the size of a turkey and had lots of feathers.
The longest horn-like structure to ever exist belongs to Nyctosaurus, a pterosaur with two long horns shaped like a Y on its head. They were about 2 feet long, which looked huge on a smaller pterosaur.
Temnodontosaurus was a large marine reptile that had one of the largest eyes of any reptile and was one of the largest Ichthyosaurs.
Bajadasaurus was a medium-sized sauropod with huge spikes along its neck, kind of like a mohawk! Amargasaurus also had a similar "spike-do" with shorter spines running across its body.
Tanystropheus was an archosaur, who lived during the late Triassic period, with an unusually long neck that was 10 feet long and was very stiff. paleontologists hypothesize that Tanystropheus was also able to drop its tail like modern lizards.
Time Periods of the Dinosaurs
There were three main time periods associated with dinosaurs. These three time periods are linked under a more major time period; the Mesozoic Era. The Mesozoic Era started 250 million years ago and ended 65 million years ago.
The first period within the Mesozoic Era was the Triassic. The Triassic lasted about 50 million years; from 250 million years ago to 200. During this time the all the continents were one; called Pangea. You could say the Triassic period was just starting out, because animals were just starting to come back after a major extinction event in the Permian Era, the era before the Mesozoic Era. Coral reefs started to form along with some larger marine reptiles like those in the group Ichthyopterygians. Some lesser known dinosaurs also started appearing which evolved into the giant beats we know today like Ceolophysis, one of the more abundant dinosaurs in the late Triassic. One of the first dinosaurs in the Triassic was the Staurikosaurus. Some early crocodile-like archosaurians also appeared like postosuchus and proterosuchus. The Triassic was also the golden age of the pseudosuchians. At the end of the Triassic, there was another extinction event that wiped out bigger and more dominant groups; like the pseudosuchians and many other lineages of early dinosaurs.
The second period of the Mesozoic was the Jurassic. The Jurassic period started about 200 million years ago and ended about 143 million years ago. During the Jurassic the continents started shifting away from each other. Also in the Jurassic, we see dinosaurs truly taking their form and diversifying. Most of the dinosaurs we know and their ancestors started showing up in the middle and late Jurassic. The earliest anklyosaurid and stegosaurid appeared in the middle of the Jurassic period, along with monolophosaurus, very early tyrannosaurids, mamenchisaurs, and ceratosaurids. By the late Jurassic, many dinosaurs and mammals started getting much bigger. Very early birds like Archeopteryx appeared in the late Jurassic. Many groups of crocodylomorphs also started diversifying, since they were the only crocodilian-formed survivors. Pterosaurs were also on the rise with Rhamphorhynchus dominating the skies.
The last period of the Mesozoic era was the Cretaceous period which lasted about 100 million years. This was considered the golden age of dinosaurs. At this point almost all the continents had their shape but wasn't completely separated. Small mammals really started populating the Earth. During the Cretaceous, sauropods reached their biggest size! All dinosaur including pterosaurs and marine reptiles hit their biggest sizes too! During the end of the Cretaceous birds came in all shapes and sizes. Then, the asteroid hit; causing the destruction of all dinosaurs all across the world.
Dinosaur Classification
To learn more about dinosaur classification, click here!
Dinosaurs of Colorado
Most of the fossils we've found in Colorado come from the Morrison Formation, which is one of the richest sites to find bones in all of America! Another rich site is down by Dinosaur Ridge, which has all sorts of cool finds! You can see lots of footprints made by all sorts of different dinosaurs! Though in Colorado, we've found dinosaur bones from Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Ornithomimus, Diplodocus, Allosaurus, Apatosaurus, Eoambia, and Haplocanthosaurus.
Why I Chose Dinosaurs
When I looked at the three oddly painted doors at the end of the hallway, I wanted to turn it into something cool! A few of the volunteers thought those colors were like the red rocks we have here in Colorado! Did you know we have the most richest grounds for finding dinosaurs fossils in all of America? And its only 45 minutes away, down in Dinosaur Ridge in Morrison, CO!