Dinosaur knowledge

Today we wrote down everything we have learnt about dinosaurs over the past 2 weeks. It was a lot!

Room 7

Dinosaur knowledge

Prior Knowledge

Animal

Predator

Dino is the root word

‘Saurs’ means something

Species 

Extinct 

Huge

Large bones

Long necks

Eggs 

Sharp teeth

Long tails

Eat people

Different kinds

Spikes

Horns

Mammals

4 legs

We learnt that...

 Bipedal means 2 feet and quadruped means 4 feet. Some dinosaurs are bipedal and some are quadrupeds. Some can change between the two stances. They are sturdy.

Theropod is a 3 clawed dinosaurs

Dinosaurs are warm-blooded, which means their blood temperature is always the same

Carnivore means a meat eater

Herbivore means a plant eater

Omnivore means it can eat plants and meat

Some dinosaurs are huge and some are small. Typically, huge dinosaurs were sluggish (slow). 

Dinosaurs died out 66 million years ago. They started existed 230 million years. 

They died because of an extinction event, most people think this was because a meteor hit the Earth. 

Dinosaurs legs go out the bottom of their hip bones, whereas reptiles bones go to the side of their hips. Reptiles do not have an extra hole in their skull, but dinosaurs do. 

Mary Anning found lots of fossils on a cliffside in England in the 19th century. She was born in 1799 and died in 1847. She survived a lightning strike as a baby. In 1824 she found the first fossil.

 Non-avian dinosaurs are dinosaurs that are not birds. Avian means birds.

Metabolism means how fast or slow your body converts food into energy

Diverse means a big range

Modifications means changes. Dinosaurs have modifications such as spikes, armour, horns or crests. 

Clade means family.

Lineage means ancestors/descendants 

Paleontologists are scientists that study ancient things including dinosaurs

There are 4 main groups of dinosaurs; theropods, sauropods, ankylosaurus and pterosaurs.

Titanoboa was top of the food chain after the dinosaurs died. It killed people by constricting people. It spent most of its time in the water because it was super heavy. It was 13m long, as big as a bus. 

Hominins existed when 7-6 million years ago, the first humans to walk on 2 feet. 

People did not exist when dinosaurs existed.

 Adaptation is something that changes over time. 

Ecology - how animals relate to each other

Fossils are made when dinosaurs die and their bones get trapped in rock or mud. The bones break down over time but leave a mould, which is filled with rock. This becomes the fossil. 

Dinosaurs sometimes eat each other. 

There were 3 periods of time that have dinosaurs. This is called the ‘age of dinosaurs’ also known as the ‘Mesozoic Era’; Triassic period, Jurassic period, and Cretasous period. 

Then there were 3 more periods in time, “Age of mammals”, also known as ‘Cenozoic Era’; Paleogene Period, Neogene period and  Quaternary period.

Dinosaur fossils have been found on every continent, including Antarctica.

Joan Wiffen found the first dinosaur fossil (a theropods tailbone) in NZ in 1975, in Hawkes Bay. She died in 2009. 

Dinosaurs laid eggs and they lived in family groups.