Exploring Dinosaurs: A Comprehensive Quiz Quiz - Test Your Knowledge

the Fossil Cabin in Wyoming was built of dinosaur bones and was billed by its builder as "the building that used to walk".

the Humboldt Museum in Berlin is home to the largest mounted dinosaur in the world, a Brachiosaurus; and the most exquisitely preserved specimen of the earliest known bird, the Archaeopteryx.

the Kaiparowits Plateau in Utah contains fine details of bones, teeth, eggshells, and even tracks of Late Cretaceous dinosaurs and other animals.

the Mount Kirkpatrick Formation is the only major dinosaur-bearing rock formation in Antarctica.

the Choristodera are extinct reptiles that lived during the time of the dinosaurs and have a skull structure similar to that of the modern day Gharial.

the prosauropod dinosaur Efraasia was misidentified at least four times before being recognized as a separate genus.

the duckbilled dinosaur Hypacrosaurus is known from the largest collection of hatchling remains for any duckbill, due to the discovery of nests belonging to H. stebingeri.

the holotype specimen of the dinosaur Linheraptor is one of few nearly complete dromaeosaurid skeletons, worldwide.

the Late Cretaceous madtsoiid snake Sanajeh preyed on hatchling sauropod dinosaurs at nesting sites in India.

the Phyllodon, a small herbivorous dinosaur from the Late Jurassic found in present-day Portugal, may have been closely related to North American dinosaurs.

the actors in the film Planet of Dinosaurs had to sign partial payment deferments on their contracts, because most of the budget was spent on stop motion dinosaurs.

the novel Raptor Red, by paleontologist Robert T. Bakker, is told from the perspective of an intelligent therapod dinosaur, Utahraptor.

the prehistoric mammal Yanoconodon (pictured) was a Eutriconodont, a group of early, ancestral mammals that in some cases, grew so big they were able to eat small dinosaurs.

the recently-discovered dinosaur Austroraptor is the largest dromaeosaur to have been found in the Southern Hemisphere.

the unusual finger structure of the dinosaur Limusaurus (pictured) gives clues on how dinosaur hands evolved into bird wings.

the newly-named Oryctodromeus, a genus of small herbivorous dinosaur from the mid Cretaceous of Montana, is the first dinosaur described as making burrows.

the first fossilised dinosaur eggs found in the world, which are also the oldest dinosaur embryos ever discovered, belong to Massospondylus and were found in Golden Gate Highlands National Park, South Africa in 1978.

the beaches of Roebuck Bay exhibit the fossil footprints of dinosaurs.

the dinosaur Lufengosaurus, whose remains were found in China, was the first dinosaur to appear on a commemorative postage stamp, in 1958.

the discovery of feather-like structures on the primitive dinosaur Tianyulong raises the possibility that ancestral dinosaurs were feathered.

the Jurassic crocodile relative Phyllodontosuchus had two types of teeth; one type resembled those of some herbivorous dinosaurs, indicating it may not have been a strict carnivore.

species of Prosaurolophus, a duckbilled dinosaur, have been described by Barnum Brown and Jack Horner, two of the most prominent paleontologists of the 20th century.

Johnny Anders, mayor of Stamford in West Texas, built from spare automobile parts a 22-foot dinosaur model displayed in Stamford's city park.

Raven Ridge (pictured) displays sedimentary rock from the K–T boundary, a time period when numerous plant and animal species, including dinosaurs, disappeared completely from the fossil record.

Aerosteon, a 9-metre (30 ft) long bipedal carnivorous dinosaur that lived approximately 84 million years ago, had air-sacs in its bones similar to those in the respiratory systems of modern birds.

Agilisaurus was first discovered when construction workers were excavating a site for a new dinosaur museum in China.

footprints have revealed clues about the activity of criminals and dinosaurs, and have also been the source of several myths and legends.

Ammosaurus remains were originally mistaken by Othniel Charles Marsh as those of another dinosaur, Anchisaurus.

flutist Masakazu Yoshizawa was hired by John Williams to play the shakuhachi for the Jurassic Park soundtrack because the instrument sounded "like a dinosaur's cry".

fossil remains of the dinosaur species Aralosaurus were found in Kazakhstan after the Aral Sea started shrinking significantly.

Othniel Charles Marsh named two species of the dinosaur Coelurus from the same quarry, not knowing that the bones belonged to the same skeleton.

Aliwalia is the earliest known carnivorous dinosaur, and was huge for its time.

Ampelosaurus was a European dinosaur that bore spikes on its back up to 20 cm long.

Pisanosaurus, from 228 to 216.5 million years ago, is the oldest known ornithischian dinosaur.

Repenomamus may have been the largest mammal in the Cretaceous period and is the only mammal known to have eaten non-avian dinosaurs.

numerous specimens of dinosaurs have been excavated from the Dashanpu Formation, first discovered by a natural gas company that found the formation's first dinosaur, Gasosaurus.

Peloroplites was one of the largest nodosaurid dinosaurs, and came from a time when armored dinosaurs in general were attaining large sizes.

Gigantoraptor, a bird-like dinosaur discovered in Inner Mongolia, is thirty-five times larger than its peacock-sized relative, Caudipteryx.

Antarctosaurus was one of the largest dinosaurs ever to live in South America.

Dracorex hogwartsia was a dinosaur named for its resemblance to the Hungarian Horntail, a dragon in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series.

Eocursor, a small bipedal herbivorous dinosaur from the Late Triassic of South Africa, is the most completely known Triassic ornithischian (beaked dinosaur).

Chicago hairstylist John Lanzendorf owned one of the world's largest collections of dinosaur-themed artwork.

Exploring Dinosaurs: A Comprehensive Quiz

1 However, because they were either common to other groups of ________ or were not present in all early dinosaurs, these features are not considered to be synapomorphies.

2 From a behavioral standpoint, one of the most valuable dinosaur fossils was discovered in the ________ in 1971.

3 In 1858, the first known American dinosaur was discovered, in marl pits in the small town of ________ (although fossils had been found before, their nature had not been correctly discerned).

4 The study of these "great fossil lizards" soon became of great interest to European and American scientists, and in 1842 the English paleontologist ________ coined the term "dinosaur".

5 It was an extremely important find: Hadrosaurus was one of the first nearly complete dinosaur skeletons found (the first was in 1834, in Maidstone, Kent, England), and it was clearly a ________ creature.

6 Meanwhile herbivorous insects and mammals diversified rapidly to take advantage of the new type of plant food, while lizards, snakes, crocodilians and ________ also diversified at the same time.

7 When dinosaurs appeared, terrestrial habitats were occupied by various types of basal archosaurs and therapsids, such as ________, cynodonts, dicynodonts, ornithosuchids, rauisuchians, and rhynchosaurs.

8 Using the strict ________ definition that all descendants of a single common ancestor must be included in a group for that group to be natural, birds would thus be dinosaurs and dinosaurs are, therefore, not extinct.

9 The largest known carnivorous dinosaur was ________, reaching a length of 16 to 18 meters (50 to 60 ft), and weighing in at 8150 kg (18000 lb).

10 The discovery was reported in 1998, and described the specimen of a small, very young ________, Scipionyx samniticus.

💡 Interesting Facts

Related Quizzes

Exploring the 18th Century: A Historical Quiz

Significant Events of 1904

Significant Events and Figures of 1911

Historical Events and Notable Figures of 1919

Significant Events and Figures of 1929

Key Historical Events of 1939

Significant Events and Figures of 1943

Significant Events and Figures of 1971