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Open my wish list →Over 900 kinds of dinosaur other than birds have been confidently identified from fossils. Here is what they have in common.
Birds are feathered dinosaurs. They evolved from earlier dinosaurs called theropods. Birds are the only dinosaurs still alive today.
SourceDinosaurs held their back legs straight down underneath their bodies. Most other reptiles have legs that sprawl out to the sides.
SourceEvidence suggests that all dinosaurs laid eggs. Many dinosaurs, both birds and the others, built nests.
SourceNot a thief
In 1923 an expedition to the Gobi Desert in Mongolia found the bones of a small feathered dinosaur lying with a nest of eggs. The eggs were thought to belong to another dinosaur, Protoceratops. So in 1924 the new dinosaur was named Oviraptor, which means "egg thief". Later finds told a different story. Oviraptor and its relatives brooded and protected their nests by crouching on them. The first Oviraptor was actually sitting on its own eggs when it died, not stealing them. It had a toothless, horny beak, and it was about 1.6 to 2 metres long.
SourceThe first name
In 1676 a piece of bone was found at Stonesfield in Oxfordshire. Robert Plot correctly saw that it was the lower end of a thigh bone. At first he thought it came from a Roman war elephant, and later from a giant human. On 20 February 1824 William Buckland announced a name for the animal: Megalosaurus, meaning "great lizard". It was the first dinosaur other than birds to be named. Megalosaurus lived about 166 million years ago. In 1842 Richard Owen put it in a new group with two other reptiles. He called the group Dinosauria.
SourceMicroraptor
Microraptor had four wings, one on each arm and each leg. One fossil is just 77 centimetres long. Its fossil pigment cells are shaped like those of glossy black birds today, so its feathers were probably black with a shimmer. It lived in what is now China.
SourceStegosaurus
Stegosaurus had between 17 and 22 plates and flat spines along its back. They may have been used mainly for display. Its tail spikes were most likely used for defence. Its braincase was small, no larger than a dog's.
SourceArgentinosaurus huinculensis
Argentinosaurus was a giant sauropod dinosaur from what is now Argentina. It is among the largest known land animals. Only a few of its bones have been found, so its exact size is hard to work out.
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