This system has helped people for decades
Even the largest species, such as the Tyrannosaurus, reaches full size in no more than 30 years, and, like humans, dinosaurs reportedly have a teenage growth spurt.
Detailed examination of skeletons can show how bones fit and moved together, with paleontologists sometimes extrapolating knowledge of anatomy and other species to put separate pieces together.
Some studies show that Earth’s temperature was changing before the cataclysmic meteor, and that dinosaurs had already been slowly declining before they disappeared. Ongoing eruptions are also much more common than giant meteor strikes.
They can produce virtual models of the bones, which can then be tested in ways real fossils would never be allowed to. The virtual models are imported into different computer programs, clothed in muscle, and subjected to forces ranging from walking to destruction.
Some dinosaur fossils, if well-preserved, include evidence of soft tissues like skin, muscle, and internal organs, giving vital clues on dinosaur biology and appearance.
Dinosaurs had no chance of surviving that double slam.
Sources: (NBC News) (National Geographic)
Some fossils (pictured is the Caudipteryx) show that many meat-eating dinosaurs were covered in thick coats of feathers, which leads to a strange fact...
Upon discovering fossilized nests, scientists can learn about a dinosaur’s egg-laying and parenting strategy from the number of eggs and the way they are arranged.
The idea that birds are nothing more than small, meat-eating dinosaurs that gained feathers and learned how to fly has actually been proven in the last 20 years!
Particularly the use of computed tomographic (CT) scanning, which uses rotating X-rays to build a 3D model of both internal and external anatomy. With dinosaur bones, it can reveal features of the skeleton like the shape of the brain and the presence of air-filled sacs that ran through many dinosaur bones.
Birds are dinosaurs! They're only one small branch of the dinosaur family tree, but they carry a direct genetic legacy, meaning that their genes are dinosaur genes.
One of the most well-known theories is credited to father-son scientists Luis and Walter Alvarez, who in 1980 proposed the notion that a meteor the size of a mountain slammed into Earth 66 million years ago, filling the atmosphere with gas, dust, and debris that drastically altered the climate.
The main evidence is an oddly high amount of the metal iridium—rare on Earth but common in meteorites—in the geologic boundary that appears to cap any known rock layers containing dinosaur fossils.
Today, the resulting volcanic rock covers nearly 200,000 sq miles (518,000 sq km) in layers that can be more than 6,000 feet (1,828 m) thick. Such an eruptive event would have released enormous amounts of harmful gases that would have also dramatically changed Earth’s climate.
Other scientists don't think the meteor is conclusive, and hypothesize that a volcanic eruption is more likely, especially since the ancient lava flows in India, known as the Deccan Traps, match up with the end of the Cretaceous period, releasing huge amounts of lava between 60 and 65 million years ago.
Scientists were also able to link the extinction event to a huge impact crater—the approximately 93-mile (150-km) wide Chicxulub crater seen in a faint dark green arc on the upper left—along the coast of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula.
After examining deep inside the crater, scientists deduced the impact would have been powerful enough to send huge amounts of vaporized rock and gases into the atmosphere, which later rained down tiny glass bits called tektites. These were found with the dinosaur fossils.
A dinosaur's teeth shape can reveal their diet, and analysis under a microscope may reveal wear marks and scratches that give further clues to what the dinosaur ate and how.
Scientists have figured out that birds today contain dormant genes for forming teeth, and some are attempting to switch on these genes in living birds. There's also the possibility of transforming bird beaks into more dinosaur-like snouts, and possibly re-introducing the long tails, too!
Yes, even fossilized dinosaur poo, called coprolite, has helped shape our knowledge of the species! They sometimes contain evidence of the animal’s past meal. Dark bits are pieces of plant, indicating that the dinosaur was likely a herbivore.
Dinosaurs were first discovered in the 18th century, and as our tools have progressed, so too has our knowledge of the extinct species, proving them more intriguing than any science-fiction tale.
Unlike 'Jurassic Park,' dinosaurs' DNA is not simply accessible in ancient mosquitoes. Rather, paleontologists must painstakingly pore over the fossilized remains to determine how they might have appeared and behaved when alive, and their findings have some fascinating and slightly spooky implications for the future, too.
While the great and mysterious extinction of dinosaurs has rooted their species in history, their genes are finding a way into our future. Click through to read, based on information from the Natural History Museum, about where dinosaurs came from, how they lived, how they vanished, and what they've left behind.
Dinosaurs went extinct 66 million years ago, but they roamed Earth for at least 160 million years prior to that. For reference, humans’ ancestors have been traced back six million years, and modern homo sapiens only evolved about 200,000 years ago.
What do we actually know about dinosaurs?
Based on information from the Natural History Museum
LIFESTYLE History
Dinosaurs were first discovered in the 18th century, and as our tools have progressed, so too has our knowledge of the extinct species, proving them more intriguing than any science-fiction tale.
Unlike 'Jurassic Park,' dinosaurs' DNA is not simply accessible in ancient mosquitoes. Rather, paleontologists must painstakingly pore over the fossilized remains to determine how they might have appeared and behaved when alive, and their findings have some fascinating and slightly spooky implications for the future, too.
While the great and mysterious extinction of dinosaurs has rooted their species in history, their genes are finding a way into our future. Click through to read, based on information from the Natural History Museum, about where dinosaurs came from, how they lived, how they vanished, and what they've left behind.