Velociraptor

Velociraptor  is a 6 ½-foot  feathered carnivore with a big claw on the second toe on each foot. This predator of the Gobi Dessert hunted in packs. They would search for large dinosaurs, then they would jump on the prey and dig their claws into the creature.

Helicoprion

Helicoprion was a prehistoric shark with saw like teeth and got up to 25 ft. He didn’t have top teeth and one row on bottom of the mouth. The teeth are used to slice fish in half so he can swallow each half whole. When he grew a new tooth it would push the rest back creating a spiral. You can see an exhibit of these sharks at ISU.

Amphicoelias fragillimus

Amphicoelias fragillimus might have been the longest dinosaur because he was 130 to 200 ft. long and weighed 135 tons.  His name means biconcave.  The only bones discovered that go to the dino are a vertebra and a femur.  They were found in the 1870's, but then all of the bones got lost.

Alxasaurus

Alxasaurus lived in China.  They had a long neck and long, narrow claws.  He was an herbivore.  It's claws may have been used to pull branches closer to their mouths and also may have been used for self-defense.  A full skull of Alxasaurus has never been found.

South Dakota trip

We took our trip to South Dakota in July.  It was fun.  The mammoth site has a short-faced bear and both types of mammoth.  They have only found 15 short-faced bears in the world and this is the only place in the world where both types of mammoth have been found.

Mammoth Dig Site

I am going to the Mammoth Dig Site in South Dakota next month.  At this site they have found Ice Age camels, llamas, giant short-faced bears,wolves, coyotes, prairie dogs, fish, mollusks, and many more!  They have found 52 North American Columbian Mammoths and 3 Wooly Mammoths - this is the only site in the world where both species have been found together.

Maiasaura

Maiasaura means "good mother lizard."  A maiasaura was 30 feet long and weighed 8000 pounds.  The name was chosen because she weighed so much she didn't sit on her nest, she just put leaves on her eggs so she wouldn't crack them trying to keep them warm.  There were as many as 10,000 maiasaura in a herd.


Here is a video of a song I really, really like from www.dinofun.com

Cryolophosaurus

Cryolophosaurus lived in Antarctica!  It is the first known dinosaur that lived on Antarctica.  Cryolophosaurus had an unusual sheetlike crest and no feathers and he ate meat.  He was 21 and a half feet long and weighed 1000 pounds.  He also had three fingers, three toes, and a neck about as big as the neck of a T. Rex.

Diplodocus

Diplodocus is 82 feet long and weighed 16 tons.  He is like a Brachiosaurus with a longer tail and smaller body.  He is slow and also uses his tail for balance.  Diplodocus is not very tall compared to Brachiosaurus, though, and must have had tough neck and tail bones.

Stegosaurus

Stegosaurus has two rows of bony plates on it's back head to tail.  He weighs five tons and was 30 feet long.  An adult African elephant weighs 6 to 8 tons.  Stegosaurus had a small skull and the spikes at the end of it tail were longer than it's skull.  His tail spikes were 3 feet long.

Kentrosaurus

Kentrosaurus was found in Tanzania, which is in Africa.  Kentrosaurus is like a Stegosaurus but half of it is plates and the other half is spikes.  Stegosaurus was all plates and Kentrosaurus also has a spike on each shoulder.  He was about an inch taller than a human and his beak wasn't as big as Triceratops'.
 

Einiosaurus

Einiosaurus is kind of like Triceratops but he has two big horns on his frill and a bigger, curved horn on his nose. He is smaller, too.  He is very weird looking and his legs are very strong looking.  His horn that curves is for defense, display, and attack.  He has a beak but Triceratops' beak curves at the end and his doesn't.

 

Triceratops

Triceratops means three horned face.  He has two long horns above his eyes and one small one on top of his nose.  He has a frill on top of his head and a tail about as long as his body.  Robert Bakker (a really neat paleontologist in a lot of the dinosaur shows) thinks Triceratops is the most dangerous dinosaur but I think it is Ankylosaurus.

Spinosaurus

Now Spinosaurus.  Spinosaurus is a big Irritator and has three claws on each hand.  Spinosaurus also has a bigger spine and not the same-looking skull.  He is the biggest carnivore and that means T. Rex wasn't the biggest meat eater out there.  His teeth were 6-10 inches long.

Here is a description of how Spinosaurus killed it's prey from Monsters Resurrected


This is a real Spinosaurus tooth I got for my birthday!

Ichthyornis

This is Ichthyornis.  Ichthyornis is just 12 inches long.  He is like a bird, but has a beak with teeth and webbed feet to swim.  He also has claws on his toes, has feathers, and has a pointy beak.  It lived during the Mesozoic era and was one of the birds that bridged the gap between Archaeopteryx and modern birds.

Irritator

This is Irritator.  They call him Irritator because when they found his bones, they thought it was a Pteranodon because someone had previously modified to look like a Pteranodon.  The scientists were irritated because they were tricked.  Irritator was and is basically a small Spinosaurus with a smaller spine.  It was 26 feet long.  It lived in the early Cretaceous and was a theropod.  It was found in Brazil, which is not very common at all.

Quetzalcoatlus

Now it is time for Quetzalcoatlus. He is not a dinosaur either because dinosaurs don't fly. He is the biggest flying reptile. He had a 39-foot wingspan and weighed 143 pounds. The wingspan is the same as the Wright Brothers' plane. When Quetzalcoatlus wasn't flying he had his hands down on the ground and was as tall as a giraffe.

Elasmosaurus

Last time was Kronosaurus and now is Elasmosaurus.  They are both swimmers.  Elasmosaurus had a long neck and was like a sea Apatosaurus.  He was 46 feet long.  Elasmosaurus ate fish and had sharp teeth.  He weighed 2 tons - not nearly as much as Kronosaurus because more than half of his body length was neck.  He also has to go up to the surface of the water to breathe like modern sea mammals.

Here is a link to a video showing an Elasmosaurus from Prehistoric: Los Angeles. Prehistoric is one of my favorite shows.

Kronosaurus

                                

Now is Kronosaurus.  He is not a real dinosaur.  Dinosaurs were all land creatures but Kronosaurus lived in water.  He is like a crocodile with flippers instead of legs.  He also had powerful crocodile-like jaws.  His bones were found in Australia and Colombia.  He was 30 feet long and weighed 22 tons.  He is a pliosauroid.
This video shows a Liopleurodon, which was another pliosauriod that was very similar to Kronosaurus and was about the same size.

Parasaurolophus

Now is parasaurolophus.  Parasaurolophus had a crest on its head.  Scientists think parasaurolophus hooted out of his crest on his head and warned the herd of danger.  His crest was 6 feet long.  Parasaurolophus was 33 feet long and weighed 7700 pounds.  Parasaurolophus walked on four legs and ran on two legs.  It had an excellent sense of smell.