Dinosaur Dreaming

Common questions:
Australian Dinosaurs, and other things

Who found the first Australian dinosaur?

The first discovery of a dinosaur is of a small carnivorous dinosaur claw from the Gippsland coast of eastern Victoria, not far from where we are digging for dinosaurs at Inverloch. It was discovered in 1906 by Mr Ferguson, a government geologist, and sent to the British museum in London where it was described by Sir Arthur Smith Woodward.

What makes you go to certain places?

We look for bones in certain localities after looking at geologic maps that tell us the right age for the rocks.

How do you select the names for new dinosaurs?

Names for new dinosaurs are chosen by a number of ways:

• Named in honour of the person who was involved in finding the dinosaur, for example, Leaellynasaura.
• Named to explain some special characteristic of that dinosaur, for example, Hypsilophodont (high crowned tooth).
• Named after the area in which the dinosaur was found, for example, Muttaburrasaurus.

How many bones in an average dinosaur?

There are over 200 bones in an average dinosaur. The very large dinosaurs may have had a few more bones in their tails than other dinosaurs, but size is not normally a factor.

Are the dinosaurs found in Australia found anywhere else in the world?

Yes, the dinosaurs of Australia are found in other parts of the world. They belong to groups of dinosaurs that are found on other continents, but the species is Australian, for example, Muttaburrasaurus is the species name for an iguanadont dinosaur. Iguanadonts are found in England and North America, but Muttaburrasaurus is unique to Australia.

Was there any reason why you chose Inverloch?

We are digging at Inverloch because in 1991 we found a fossil layer on the shore rock platform with more than 20 small bones exposed on the surface. We began digging there in 1992 and have recovered over 4000 bones and teeth of small dinosaurs, plesiosaurs, turtles and fish. We hope to continue digging there next summer during February and March.

Why are there so many bones at Dinosaur Cove? Was there a flood or something? Why were there only bones of small dinosaurs found there?

The dinosaur bones at Dinosaur Cove are concentrated in an ancient river channel and were probably washed in there during a flood over 105 million years ago. Most of the bones are small because they are easier to transport by water than large bones. We know there were large dinosaurs around at the time, but their bones have not been preserved in the channel at Dinosaur Cove.

After the geologists have given back the rock map, how long before you start digging?

As soon as the palaeontologists have worked out where the right age rocks are, using the geological map, they first prospect the area looking for bones on the surface, because it is no use digging in the rocks if there are no bones visible. Once they have found exposed bones then they can start digging for more.

What is the biggest dinosaur's bone found in Australia?

The largest dinosaur bone found in Australia so far is a leg bone from a sauropod dinosaur from Queensland, called Rhoetosaurus. It would have looked something like an Apatosaurus.

Why are dinosaur bones only found in sandstone and limestone?

Dinosaur bones are not only found in sandstone and limestone, but also in other sedimentary rocks. The reason for this is that the bones collect on the ground or in rivers, lakes, by the sea and get covered over and as the sediment becomes a rock so do the bones.

How do you know which dinosaur is from which period?

To know what period a dinosaur comes from you must look at the rocks from which you took the bone. If you are in a new area and the age of the rock is unknown you have to do some geologic investigation on the rocks and also on the bone.

You may be able to get an absolute date in years from the rocks by looking at different elements in the specimens you collect. This method is called radiometric dating.

Were any of the bones (original) hollow. If yes, why?

Some of the limb bones we find are hollow. They belong to a group of animals called Theropods. These are usually carnivorous dinosaurs who were the ancestors of birds. T. rex belongs to this group or animals and had hollow bones. However birds evolved from earlier theropods, not from T. rex.

Do you know how big a dinosaur's brain is?

We can know how big a dinosaur's brain is by making a cast of its brain case. Different dinosaurs had different sized brains. For example, a sauropods' brain was small in comparison to its body, whereas Velociraptor's brain was quite large.

Do you keep the sap with mosquitos inside?

We don't find any sap with mosquitos in Victoria while looking for dinosaurs. The people who find it in other countries usually keep the sap (called Amber) and it is also used as jewellery.

What is the largest bone you have found?

The largest bone we've found is a femur (thigh bone) of a Struthiomimid. It is about 40 cm long.

How much are the bones worth?

The bones are priceless (they have no dollar value). The have great scientific value, however.

Do you ever blow up the bones when you use dynamite?

We don't often blow up the bones when we use dynamite, because the rocks above the fossil layer are being exploded.

Have you found dinosaur bones anywhere else than Dinosaur Cove?

We have found dinosaurs from Inverloch all the way to San Remo, near Phillip Island. But Australian dinosaurs are also found in Queensland, South Australia, and New South Wales as well.

How can you be sure that the bones are the actual shape they were found as or if the river has washed or eroded part of it away?

If the bone has been eroded by a river we can tell because the surface where the bone is missing is very irregular and the shape of the bone is wrong. But sometimes it can be difficult to be sure.

How did you get the word Dinosaurs?

The word dinosaur was coined by Sir Richard Owen in 1841 in England to describe a group of large extinct reptilian animals. The word dinosaur comes from the Greek language, meaning "terrible lizard". However, they are from a different group to lizards and in some ways more advanced.

How do you become a palaeontologist?

To become a palaeontologist you need to be really interested in science while at school. Then at University a palaeontologist would study Geology and Biology and a little Chemistry and Maths. But you should always keep reading about ancient plants and animals and science in general!

Who discovered Dinosaur Cove?

Dinosaur Cove was discovered by Dr Tom Rich from the Museum of Victoria while he was prospecting the area for fossils with a small group of his colleagues.

Have any dinosaurs been found around suburban Melbourne?

No dinosaurs have been found in suburban Melbourne, because the rocks are either too old, or too young.

What is the biggest tooth you have found?

The biggest tooth we have found in Victoria from a dinosaur is from a small theropod. This group includes animals such as T. rex and the 'raptors. We have many small teeth ranging from 3mm to 1cm. The largest tooth is 2cm, which probably came from a 2 metre long animal. Scary stuff when you consider it had a mouth full of these sharp, knife-like teeth.

How do you know how big the dinosaur is?

We have a good idea of how big the dinosaurs were by comparing the size of their bones with animals that are alive today. So little bones come from little dinosaurs and big bones come from big dinosaurs.

How do you know what the plants were like in that environment?

We know what the plants were like because we find fossilised leaves, seeds and spores in the rocks together with the dinosaur bones. Scientists called Palaeobotanists study the fossil plants and can work out what they looked like.

How can you tell between a male and female dinosaur?

It is very difficult to tell the difference between male and female dinosaurs just by looking at their bones. However we think that the crests on some of the duck-billed dinosaurs may have belonged to the male dinosaurs.

How do you know what the climate was?

The rocks we find the dinosaurs in also tell us a lot about the environment the dinosaurs lived in. For example, the fossil leaves and wood tell us the types of plants that grew millions of years ago. We can identify the plants by the leaves and spores, and they help us work out what climate the grew in.

In what era did the first few plants live?

Primitive fossil plants have been discovered in Silurian rocks, approximately 400 million years old. They looked a bit like horsetails. Flowering plants did not appear in the fossil record until the Cretaceous period, about 130 million years ago.

What era would these dinosaurs have lived in?

The dinosaurs lived during the Mesozoic Era which included the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. This Era began about 240 million years ago, and ended with the extinction of the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago.

There was a lot of plants for the herbivores to eat, but what did the carnivores eat?

The carnivores ate the herbivores or their eggs or any other animals they could catch. We know they ate meat by the shape of their teeth.

Was there summer and winter when the dinosaurs were alive?

In most of the world the summers and winters were not very different. However in Victoria, when the dinosaurs were around, it got very dark and cold in the winter because Australia was within the polar circle and was still attached to Antarctica.

How can scientists tell whether a dinosaur had skin, fur, or hair?

We know most dinosaurs had scaly skin because we have found skin impressions in the same rocks we find the dinosaur bone in.

Did any dinosaurs need more than one heart to support their body?

Dinosaurs only had one heart. Even the enormous Seismosaurus, which was more than 40 metres long, only had one heart.

Did dinosaurs see in colour or in black and white?

We do not know if dinosaurs could see in colour or black and white, as the eyes and nerves are not preserved in the rocks.

How many dinosaurs would have been living at their peak?

There must have been millions of dinosaurs living all over the world at their peak. We know this because we have found their fossilised bones on every continent in the world, including Antarctica.

What killed the dinosaurs? Did the Tyrannosaurus rex get greedy and eat everything or did a meteorite kill them?

We don't really know what killed the dinosaurs. It may have been a meteorite impact or lots of volcanic eruptions. Scientists are working on this question all over the world and maybe one day we will know the answer.

Did some dinosaurs or mammal like reptiles have bone marrow or were all the bones hollow?

Some dinosaurs had hollow bones like birds, but all mammal-like reptiles had bones with marrow cavities.

Which country was the very first dinosaur found?

The very first dinosaur bone (that was recognised as such) was found in England in the 1800s. Sir Richard Owen gave the bones the name 'dinosaur' which means 'terrible lizard'.

Why don't dinosaur bones decompose?

Most dinosaur bones have not been preserved or fossilised. We find only a very small number of dinosaur bones compared with the millions of dinosaurs that once lived.

Which dinosaurs do you think went extinct first?

The first dinosaur appears in the fossil record about 225 million years ago, and the last (except for birds) became extinct around 65 million years ago. During the intervening 160 million years many species of dinosaurs appeared and then became extinct.

For example, the large sauropods were common during the Jurassic period but most had disappeared by the Cretaceous period.

How far could a dinosaur travel in a day?

The distance a dinosaur could travel in a day would have depended on the size of the dinosaur. Larger dinosaurs would probably have travelled further than smaller dinosaurs, but they would have spent most of their time eating as they moved.

Was there any living thing before the dinosaurs?

Lots of animals lived before the dinosaurs, including armour plated fish, amphibians, and mammal-like reptiles.

How do we find out how dinosaurs live, and what they ate, when people were not living at that time?

This is an excellent question. Of course we can't find out everything about the dinosaurs because we can only work with what is preserved in the rocks. However, the dinosaur bones tell us a great deal about the size of the animals and what it ate.

Skin impression is sometimes preserved which gives us a good idea as to what the skin was like. Plant fossils preserved in the rock also help us to build up a picture of the environment in which the dinosaurs lived.

The minerals in the rock can give us clues as to whether there were volcanic eruptions occurring at the time. Different scientists work on the different constituents in the rocks - for example, Palaeontologists, palaeobotanists, sedimentologists - to build up a picture of what the environment was like when the dinosaurs walked on the Earth, millions of years ago.

Do dinosaurs have more or less teeth than humans?

Most dinosaurs had more teeth than humans as they continuously replaces their teeth throughout their life. Some dinosaurs had no teeth at all - but had a beak, like a bird.

Do dinosaurs urinate?

We cannot be sure if dinosaurs urinated, as soft body parts do not often preserve as fossils. However, if they were similar to modern day reptiles or birds they probably excreted a solid form of urea, or guano.

What was the first backboned mammal?

All mammals have backbones, and the earliest mammals were probably evolved from therapsid (mammal-like) reptiles and appear in the fossil record in the Triassic period.

Are any of the animals that live today related to dinosaurs?

Yes - most palaeontologists believe that birds are dinosaurs, or have evolved from a branch of small theropod dinosaurs.

How did the periods get their names?

The Cretaceous is named after a "chalk" layer found in the rocks of England and France. "Creta" means "chalk".

The Jurassic is named after the Jura Mountains of Europe. The Triassic is the Third period in the Mesozoic. "Tri" means "three" like in the word "tricycle", which means "Three wheels".

What was the last dinosaur to die?

We don't know which dinosaur was the last to die. We are still collecting information on which ones died first, and which ones died last, but it is likely that Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops were among the last to die.

Were all the countries joined together?

There have been a number of times in the past when continents have been joined together. (Try cutting out maps of South America and South Africa and seeing if you can fit them together side by side!) The main time when all of these continents were together was about 250 million years ago, during the Permian.

Are we going to continue to evolve, like how the mammals changed to dinosaurs, and then back to mammals?

All animal species (and we are animals after all!) are evolving all the time. However, mammals and dinosaurs are two separate groups. They have a common ancestor back in the late Devonian (about 350 million years ago) but they haven't evolved into each other.

Is it possible that the Earth might break up again, like it did when the dinosaurs were living, and how much would a continent move in one million years?

The continents on the earth are constantly moving. Australia is moving northwards towards Asia at about 5 centimetres per year. This is about the same rate your fingernails grow at!

Do the holes in the neck of the dinosaur's or the mammal's head have to do with their brain power?

The holes on the back of the heads of dinosaurs and mammal-like reptiles are to allow the attachment of muscles from the jaw (try touching your temple and closing your jaw to feel these muscles working). The bigger the holes are the stronger the bite is.

Did dinosaurs go into hibernation?

Dinosaurs may have hibernated, especially the ones that lived in polar regions where it was dark for three months of the year.

How many different species of dinosaurs are there?

There are about 300 different genera (or groups) of dinosaurs, which means that there are between 300 and 1000 different species of dinosaurs. More are being discovered each year.

Why were dinosaurs first believed to have scaly skin not fur?

Dinosaurs were first identified as reptiles, and as all modern reptiles have scales the dinosaurs were also thought to have scales. It has only been since skin impressions have been found that we've been able to discover that not all dinosaurs had scaly skin. Some may have even had feathers.

People say that dinosaurs can hear better than they see so we could hide underneath them, is that true?

Some dinosaurs may have relied on their sense of hearing when hunting, like bats do today, while others may have used their eyes, like owls. So you would have to be very careful which dinosaur you hid under, no matter how quiet you were!

If herbivores eat plants what did they drink?

Herbivores in the past probably drank water, like herbivores do today, although there are some plant eaters which never need to drink at all, they get all their water from the plants they eat.

How long have mammals been related to dinosaurs?

Mammals and dinosaurs are two separate groups. They have a common ancestor back in the late Devonian (about 350 million years ago) but they haven't evolved into each other.

Did any of the dinosaurs have anything in their bone structure like birds?

Theropod dinosaurs, like the Raptors, have many features that are found in birds. They have hollow bones, and their legs and arms have lost or fused bones in the same places that birds have. Some even have air holes in their bones and skull to make them strong and extra-light.

Do dinosaurs have any relation to animals today?

Dinosaurs are related to birds, and birds are definitely alive today!

Why did these dramatic changes, such as the structure of the bones, posture of the dinosaur, form of the teeth, take place and how did they occur?

All animals are constantly evolving to suit changes in their environment. Changes in posture allow an animal to run faster and get more food or escape better, changes in bone structure allow an animal to get bigger without having its bones crumble, changes in teeth allow the animal to eat different foods that other animals aren't eating.

Why hasn't it been tested that birds have a better sense of hearing than mammals?

The structure of the ears in birds is much simpler than the structure of mammal's ears, mammals can hear a much wider range of sounds than birds can because of this. This may have been because early mammals were night hunters, and needed good hearing to survive.

I read that you could get information about what you've eaten, and if you grind down your teeth or if you are malnourished. Could this work with dinosaur teeth?

Tooth shape can tell you what any animal eats. Pointy teeth are a sign or a meat eater, or carnivore, while flat teeth are a sign of a herbivore.

How do you know what type of dinosaur you have dug up?

We can tell what type of dinosaur we have dug up by comparing its bones with others that have been found. If there is nothing like it yet found, it can be named as a new species of dinosaur.

How does a dinosaur sleep? How long for? What are its sleeping habits?

Carnivorous dinosaurs probably slept a lot longer each day than herbivorous dinosaurs, the same as with modern carnivores - like cats - that sleep about 20 hours each day, while herbivores - like sheep - sleep about 8 hours a day.

How can you tell how old the dinosaurs are?

We can tell how long ago the dinosaurs lived by finding the age of the rocks we find the bones in. We can tell how old an individual dinosaur was, in some cases, by counting the number of "growth rings" in the bones, the same way as you can work out how old a tree is.

Did dinosaurs have good hearing?

Dinosaur hearing was not as good as the hearing of mammals, as their ears are much simpler in structure and they can't hear very low sounds or very high sounds.

If humans lived at the time of the dinosaurs do you think we could cope with the climate conditions as long as the dinosaurs did?

The climate at the time of the dinosaurs was slightly warmer than it is now, so it would be like living closer to the equator than you live now. Imagine living in Townsville or Cairns instead of living in southern Victoria! Humans live in tropical conditions now, so they would have been able to cope with the extra heat back in the Cretaceous.

Do dinosaurs have so-called different races?

Dinosaurs may have had different 'races', that is, slightly different forms of one species, depending on where they lived, but in most cases we haven't found enough specimens of just one species of dinosaur to tell this yet. It is the sort of question that we may be able to answer in the future when we have a lot more bones than we have now.

What were the other animals that lived in prehistoric times?

There were many other animals that lived in prehistoric times. If you look at all the animals that live today, there have been more than 90 times as many different types of animals that have lived at some time in the past.

You may want to try looking up books on prehistoric animals in the library to see what some of them looked like. Some of the ones that lived in Australia are Diprotodon (a giant wombat), Sthenurus (a large kangaroo), and Megalania (a goanna larger than a crocodile!).

Did cave men have any bearing on Dinos' names?

Cave men never lived at the same time that dinosaurs did. Humans have only been around for the last 1,500,000 years, and dinosaurs died out about 65,000,000 years ago! It is possible, however, that some of the earliest humans may have discovered dinosaur bones.

The early Chinese thought they were the bones of dragons, the early Europeans thought they were the bones of Giants, and the early Australians called them the Kadimakara, and thought they had fallen from the great Sky Land.

How did their skin adapt to the climate and did they get sunburn or their skin deteriorate?

Dinosaur skins were much thicker than our skins, more like the skins of turtles and crocodiles in thickness. It is unlikely that they got sunburn, although even turtles or tortoises out in the sun for too long will get cracks in their skin which will become very sore.

What was the first backbone dinosaur?

All dinosaurs had backbones, as did many animals that lived before the dinosaurs. The first backboned animal was a type of fish that lived more than 500 million years ago. The oldest Australian dinosaur that we have found so far is Rhoetosaurus, which lived in the Jurassic, about 150 million years ago.

Which bird is the most related to dinosaurs?

The bird alive today that is most like Archaeopteryx is the South American bird, the Hoatzin. It has small claws on each wing to help it climb trees.

How often do you find bones?

We find bones fairly often when we go looking in the right places for them! The rocks that we look in have to be the right age to have dinosaur bones in them, like from the Cretaceous when the dinosaurs lived, and they have to be the right types of rocks to have buried and held bones, like old river beds or lakes.

When we find rocks of the right age and type we look for small pieces of bone eroding out on the surface of the rocks to tell us that there may be more bone inside.

Millions of years ago, what kind of birds would you find?

The first birds are about 120-130 million years old. They would have looked a bit like the birds you see today, but some had teeth in their beaks, and small claws on their wings to help them climb. By about 50 million years ago all the modern types of birds were around.

How valuable are dinosaur bones?

Dinosaur bones are priceless to palaeontologists and researches and of no value to anyone else. Without the knowledge they contain they are worth nothing.

How come they have such long names?

Dinosaur names are given by the person who discovered them, and usually mean something about the dinosaur, or the person who discovered them, or the place they were discovered.

For example, the Hypsilophodont dinosaur Leaellynasaura amicagraphica is named after Leaellyn Rich (Leaellyn), the fact that it is a dinosaur (-saura), the Friends of the Museum of Victoria (amica = friends), and the National Geographic Society (-graphica,), while Tyrannosaurus means Tyrant lizard.

What is the longest dinosaur name?

The longest dinosaur name is probably Jurassosaurus nedegoapeferkimorium, which was named after the cast of the movie Jurassic Park! It is a Chinese ankylosaur.

If Hypsilophodonts were so small and fragile why are so many of them found?

Hypsilophodonts were small, and many of their bones were very fragile. The bones we mainly find are the strongest bones from their legs, like their femurs. Many of the weaker bones got smashed in the rivers that carried their bones to where we now dig them out of the rocks.

We usually find bones of small dinosaurs, as the rivers we are digging up to find the bones weren't strong enough to carry large bones from bigger dinosaurs. (Try getting a hose, and spraying water on a number of objects of different sizes and weights and see which ones the water can push!) Also, Hypsilophodonts were a very common dinosaur, being a herbivore, unlike the rarer carnivorous dinosaurs alive at the same time, so we are more likely to find them.

Could dinosaurs be brought back to life from eggs/DNA samples?

Dinosaurs can't be brought back to life from eggs or DNA samples yet, as we don't know enough about their DNA to do this. The amount of information in every cell in a dinosaur's body, the DNA that says what a dinosaur is, is about the same as the number of words in an encyclopedia, and we can get it out of the bones by grinding them up and extracting tiny bits of the DNA that remains.

The most information we can get right using DNA at the moment is about the same as one paragraph from that encyclopedia. Now, to bring them back to life we have to make that entire encyclopedia with every word absolutely right! It'd take a long time, and we'd have to grind up more dinosaur bones than have been found so far anywhere in the world!

Would dinosaurs attack humans & if so, why?

If humans lived at the same times as dinosaurs it is likely that some of the larger carnivorous dinosaurs would try to eat them, in the same way that lions or tigers sometimes try to eat humans today. But, humans have only been around for the last 1.5 million years, and dinosaurs died out about 65 million years ago!

If dinosaurs may have evolved into birds and different animals evolved into other animals, where are the human race headed for in our evolutionary path?

Evolution is caused by a change in an animal's environment selecting one type of animal instead of another. If it suddenly gets hotter, then animals with long fur will find it hard to keep up with those with short fur, and the ones with short fur will have the most offspring, so that the next generation will have more short furred animals than long furred ones.

Humans have learned how to control parts of our environment. We have air conditioning to keep us cool in summer, and heaters to keep us warm in winter, so there is less evolutionary pressure on us. It will take a very large change in the world's environment to begin evolutionary selection of humans again.

If you want to know more about this, try finding a book called "After Man" by Dougal Dixon, which looks at what may happen to evolution and animals if man died out tomorrow.

If you only got one or two bones how do you piece a whole dinosaur together?

We can tell what sort of dinosaurs we are finding from one or two bones by comparing the bones we find with those found elsewhere in the world. Even though we don't find complete skeletons, we can sometimes tell right down to species what sort of dinosaur we are finding just from the shapes and sizes of these bones.

We can't put whole skeletons back together from just one or two bones, but by finding just one or two bones from a lot of dinosaurs of the same type we can tell a lot about how they lived.

How do the people who made Jurassic Park know that the velociraptors attacked in pairs from the side?

The makers of Jurassic Park studied the tactics of pack hunters like wolves to get an idea of how pack hunting dinosaurs may have behaved. We know that Raptors were pack hunters as they are often found dead in groups of adults, like wolf packs.

Which dinosaur was the fastest runner?

The fastest runner was certainly one of the Raptors, possibly Velociraptor.

What was the smallest dinosaur?

The smallest dinosaur (adult dinosaur) was an insectivore like Coelophysis.

Did dinosaurs ever live in the snow?

We don't know yet if dinosaurs lived in the snow, but we do know that some dinosaurs lived very close to the poles, and the temperature there would have certainly dropped below freezing for part of the year.

How many dinosaur species do you think turned into birds?

The Theropod dinosaur species gave rise to birds, but it was probably only one species that was the ancestor of all birds. We are still searching for the exact species!

How long did dinosaurs live for?

The size of a dinosaur is a good indicator of how long they may have lived for. Smaller dinosaurs would have had shorter lives than the larger ones, just the same way as a mouse doesn't live for as long as a elephant does.

Did some of the birds eat meat, and how many types?

Many of the early birds would have been meat eaters (or carnivores), as some of the earliest have toothed beaks.

How many dinosaur species have been found in the last 20 years?

In the past 20 years there has been a rapid increase in the number of dinosaurs found as new methods have been discovered to find and excavate their bones. On average there are ten new dinosaur species found and named every year.

How many dinosaurs have you found like birds?

Most of the bird-like dinosaurs are the Theropod, or carnivorous, dinosaurs. There are more than 120 different types of Theropod dinosaurs, including the carnosaurs, ceratosaurs, troodontids, dromaeosaurs, oviraptors, and ornithomimosaurs.

How many dinosaur species have been found in India?

About 30 different dinosaur species have been found in India, including carnosaurs, and sauropods.

Do you think that emus are related to dinosaurs?

Emus are as related to other dinosaurs in the same way that all birds are related to dinosaurs. Just because they look like ornithomimids doesn't mean that they are any closer related than any other bird is!

How many dinosaur species were found in Mexico?

So far only two species of Theropod dinosaurs have been found in Mexico. Many of the rocks in Mexico are either too old or too young to have dinosaur bones in them.

What sort of birds do you think are related to dinosaurs?

All birds are related to dinosaurs!

Why did the dinosaurs look like birds that we have now?

Animals that live the same lifestyle tend to look similar, as a result, dinosaurs that lived out on the open plains, like the Ornithomimids, look a lot like birds that live out on open plains now, like the Emu.

What sort of plants did they eat?

Some of the plants that early herbivores ate are still around today, like conifers (pines) and Ginkgoes and ferns. Most of the trees and plants around today, the flowering plants, were not around during the times that early dinosaurs lived although by the end of the Cretaceous they were becoming more common.

Could certain types of pollution kill the dinosaurs?

Pollution from volcanic eruptions may have caused acid rain that helped to kill off the dinosaurs.

What animals do you think were once dinosaurs beside birds?

All the dinosaurs died out about 65 million years ago, their only living descendants are the birds. Reptiles, like crocodiles and lizards are related to the ancestors of the dinosaurs.

Were dinosaurs able to see as well as we can?

It is likely that some dinosaurs were able to see better than we can, such as nocturnal (night) hunters. Many grazers, like Protoceratops, may not have had very good eyesight.

I've read that you can get information about how someone lived if you grind down their teeth. Could that work with dinosaur's teeth?

Tooth shape can tell you what any animal eats. Pointy teeth are a sign of a meat eater, or carnivore, while flat teeth are a sign of a herbivore. By looking at the shapes of dinosaur's teeth and the worn surfaces on them we can tell what they were eating and how tough their food was.

How many teeth does a T. rex have?

A Tyrannosaurus rex had 64 teeth, 32 in its top jaw, and 32 in its bottom jaw, but it grew new teeth all the time to replace damaged or worn teeth.

I've heard from books and television that the crocodiles were really big. If so why did they shrink?

As the climate has got drier it is unable to support the large animals that lived in the past. There is less food around, so animals tend to stay smaller now than they have been in the past. For example, there used to be a goanna-like lizard in Australia the size of the biggest crocodile ever found!

Why did flying dinosaurs survive?

Flying dinosaurs (birds) survived as they were able to travel further and faster in search of food during the climatic crisis at the end of the Cretaceous than the ground dwelling dinosaurs were.

How long did it take to find the dinosaur that you (Pat Vickers-Rich) named after your daughter?

It took more than 6 years to find Leaellynasaura, from the time we started prospecting the coastline to the time that we found and named the dinosaur skull you saw in the program.

When you find dinosaur bone how do you know that they are dinosaur bones?

We can tell if a dinosaur bone is a dinosaur bone by comparing each bone to complete skeletons of the same type of dinosaurs found elsewhere in the world.

How did the dinosaurs in Australia get to Australia?

When there were dinosaurs in Australia, Australia was connected to Antarctica, and through Antarctica to South Africa, South America, and India. Some Australian dinosaurs evolved here, while others migrated into Australia.

Did carnivores have several rows of teeth?

Carnivorous dinosaurs had only one row of teeth (64 teeth altogether in T.rex), it was the herbivores like Edmontosaurus that had rows and rows of teeth.

What was the name of the first dinosaur that lived? Where were the bones found?

The first dinosaurs and oldest dinosaurs that have been found so far are Herrerrosaurus, and Eoraptor. Their bones were found in South America.

How many skeletons of Tyrannosaurus rex are there?

So far more than 14 Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons have been found, not all of these are complete skeletons, and T. rex is only found in Northern America.

How long did the change from dinosaur to bird take?

The change from dinosaur to bird took 10 million years, from 135 to 125 million years.

What kind of equipment do you need to extract bones from rock?

The equipment you need to extract bones from rocks varies depending on how hard the rock is! If the rock is very soft, you can use brushes and tweezers. If the rock is very hard, like the rock we are finding bones in, you need hammers and chisels, and sometimes jackhammers and explosives!

When did the word change from dinosauria to dinosaur?

The word Dinosauria is the scientific name for the whole group of what we call Dinosaurs!

How big was the archaeopteryx?

Archaeopteryx was a bit bigger than the average pigeon!

Why were some dinosaurs so lethal?

Some dinosaurs were very lethal, as they were hunting carnivores, like lions and tigers are today, but much larger!

Are there any omnivorous dinosaurs?

There were certainly some omnivorous dinosaurs, as some dinosaur teeth are in between pointy (carnivorous) teeth, and flat (herbivorous) teeth, while others had no teeth at all!. It is possible that some of the ornithomimosaurs, or oviraptosaurs may have been omnivorous.

Where is the most common place to find dinosaurs?

Dinosaurs are most commonly found in North America, China, Mongolia, and parts of Russia. This is because there are lots of rocks there of the right age.

Did meat eating dinosaurs ever eat plants?

Meat eating dinosaurs may have eaten plants occasionally, in the same way that a cat will sometimes eat grass to add to its diet.

Where and when did they find them?

The first dinosaur bones ever found and recognised as dinosaurs were in the mid 1800s in England, however, it is thought that many of the old Chinese legends of Dragons came from dinosaur skulls being found in the deserts.

Did dinosaurs especially early birds sit on eggs? How did they keep them warm?

Dinosaurs and early birds are likely to have sat on their eggs, in some cases fossils of parent dinosaurs have been found on the top of their nests, like Oviraptor.

Did dinosaurs interbreed?

It is unlikely that dinosaurs were able to interbreed, in the same way that modern species are unable to interbreed successfully.

Were early birds warm blooded? Were some dinosaurs warm blooded?

It is likely that early birds were warm blooded, and as these evolved from a branch of the Theropod dinosaurs it is also likely that at least some dinosaurs were warm blooded.

Were crocodilians around during the dinosaur age?

Crocodilians were around in the dinosaur age. At Dinosaur Cove, near Cape Otway, we have found crocodile teeth in the same rocks as dinosaur bones.

If birds are warm blooded, reptiles cold blooded, how did the transition take place?

The transition between warm blooded and cold blooded animals would have taken place as a result of selection and the environment favouring one type of animal over another. A warm blooded animal is able to be more active than a cold blooded one, so an animal that was even slightly able to make its own heat would be able to get more of a limited food supply than a cold blooded one.

Are there any places in Australia that would be great places to find fossils but scientists can't get at?

It would be really great if we could look for fossils in the Cretaceous age rocks that lie underneath Bass Strait! Unfortunately, hunting for bones under 150m of water is a bit difficult!

How did the early birds fly with such long tails?

The longest tail of any bird that lives today is found on one of the Birds of Paradise in New Guinea; the tail is more than 1 metre long, while the rest of the bird is less than 20 cm long! This bird flies very well from tree to tree, so it is reasonable to assume that the first birds could fly with their much shorter tails!

How many different types of dinosaurs have been found in a) Australia? b) Worldwide?

In Australia there are more than 12 types of dinosaurs, and in the rest of the world there are more than 300, but more dinosaurs are being found every year!

How long do dinosaurs live? a) Meat eating b) Plant eating?

We still don't know exactly how long dinosaurs lived, but if we compare them to modern animals, some plant eaters, like Elephants can live for more than 50 years, while big cats like lions live for around 10 years on average.

If you found a frozen dinosaur, would you be able to bring it back to life with modern technology?

There is no ice on the planet that is much older than 1 million years, because it gets naturally recycled in the form of glaciers and icebergs. As dinosaurs lived more than 65 million years ago, it is very unlikely that you could find a frozen one.

Did the earliest birds make the same kind of noises as they do now?

Modern birds make a huge variety of noises, from squawks to bellows! Imagine the sounds that would have filled ancient forests when you not only had ancient birds, but also dinosaurs calling for their mates or offspring!

What would have happened to the missing bones in a pile?

Bones often are missing because they have been eroded out of the rocks before we find them and destroyed naturally, or they were never preserved in the first place.

What other dinosaurs survived other than the birds?

The only survivors of the dinosaurs are the birds!

How do you know that the dinosaur bone is a dinosaur bone?

When we find dinosaur bones, we compare them to bones from more complete skeletons. If the bones are similar in size, shape, and cross sectional texture, they are most probably from the same type of dinosaur.

How do you know if a dinosaur is male or female?

In most cases we are still not sure if a dinosaur is male or female, but some have different shaped head crests, or are of different sizes and we can imply from these that some are female and some are male. If we have a complete skeleton in some cases the chevron bones that hang down below the tail are different between males and females.

What makes dinosaurs successful?

Dinosaurs were successful because they have been around for 250 million years... Humans have only been around in the form of Homo sapiens for around 200,000 years.

What is the number range of a dinosaur's teeth?

Some dinosaurs had no teeth (Ornithomimids had beaks instead), while others like the Hadrosaurs had batteries of hundreds of teeth waiting to replace worn teeth.

What made the bird's leg bone fuse?

Fusion of leg bones is a great way to make them much lighter, while still allowing them to be strong.

How could you tell where to put the bones on the dead dinosaur?

We work out where each bone goes, by comparing every bone with the bones of complete dinosaur skeletons that were found with each bone in the same place as it would have been when they were alive. In some cases bones have been initially put in the wrong place. (The thumb spike of Iguanodon was first thought to be a nose spike!!!)

How do the bones stay preserved without decomposing?

Bone is made up of a mineral, Calcium Phosphate, which in many cases is hard to destroy. However, acids, like vinegar, will dissolve it easily (try putting a chicken bone in vinegar for a few days and seeing how soft it gets!).

If the bones are NOT in an acid environment, there is a good chance that they will be preserved. Other minerals can also enter the bone while it is buried and help to preserve it.

Are dinosaur's bones as easy to break as our bones?

Some dinosaur bones are easier to break than our bones, as the way they have been fossilised can often leave them very brittle. At Inverloch, the dinosaur bones are often so soft that you can break them just by touching them.

How do you know how the Raptor used its claw on its middle toe?

From the shape, size, and the amount the toe can bend back, the best explanation anyone has come up with is that this claw was used in attacking its prey. Try thinking about other animals with curved claws. What do they use them for?

How do you know the difference between dinosaur bones and any animal bones?

When we find dinosaur bones, we compare them to bones from more complete skeletons. If the bones are similar in size, shape, and cross sectional texture, they are most probably from the same type of dinosaur. If they are nothing like them, we check all other animal bones to see what they may possibly be from!

Did other dinosaurs fight back for their lives by biting or doing something else to meat eaters?

Fossils of dinosaurs fighting for their lives have been found. The most famous is where a Triceratops and a T. rex are locked together, with the nose horn of the Triceratops between the bones of the T. rex.

Wouldn't the teeth and bones rot over the years?

Teeth & bones are made up of hard materials like Calcium Phosphate, which does not rot! That is why when we find fossils, often all we find are the teeth and bones.

Are you sure that T. rex was the biggest dinosaur?

T. rex was not the biggest dinosaur. The biggest dinosaur yet found is a herbivore called Seismosaurus, but the biggest carnivore is a new dinosaur found in Argentina almost 1 1/2 times the size of T. rex.

Did the dinosaurs become more adjusted to the Earth as time progressed?

The dinosaurs appear to have been a very well adjusted group of animals as they have been around since about 240 million years ago. Humans have only been around for less than 2 million (for the oldest hominid). They became better adapted to their environments as time passed.

Do plants have fossils as well as animals?

We find many plant fossils, ranging from leaves and flowers to whole trees. Coal is fossilised plants! If you visit the museum you will be able to see fossilised plants.