FOSSILS

The first fossils were found by Mary Anning and her brother Joseph in Lyme Regis, south-west England in 1811. The animal was four meters long with along tail. A strange animal was called Ichthyosaurs.

Marry Annings found many more Ichthyosaurs and other sea animals.

She found a plesiosaur - a flying animal.

Many scientist read about those strange animals. One of them was William Buckland. He was very interested in animals and fossils. Buckland discovered enormous fossils bones and big teeth near Oxford. He called that animal Megalosaurs - big lizard.

English scientist Richard Owen wrote a book about the animals that scientists had found. He called his book Dinosauria. In this book he used the name dinosaur which means "terrible lizard".

In 19. century dinosaurs were found in other parts of Europe and North America. Two Americans Marsh and Cope competed to find more bones. They hated each other. Their war was called "Bone Wars".

The first dinosaurs appeared about 230 million years ago and they lived on Earth for 165 million years. They lived during the Triassic, the Jurassic and the Cretaceous.

THE FIRST DINOSAURS

The first dinosaurs were small like a chicken, they had two legs, hands, long tails, small heads and mouth. These small animals were called archosaur.

The Earth they lived in was one large continent called Pangaea. They could walk from one side of Pangaea to the other.

In Argentina, were found archosaur Marasuchus and Eoraptor.

On Pangaea lived small flying animals which were called Pterosaurus. They had wings, long tails and beaks with teeth.

In the sea lived ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs. These were in the same family as the archosaurus but they swum.

Some of them were small while the others were huge with big mouth, lots of teeth and big eyes which helped them to see in the dark.

After millions of years archosaurs evolved into the first real dinosaurs.

There were three main types of dinosaurs:

1. theropods - meat eating dinosaurs
2. sauropods - plant eating dinosaurs with long neck and tail
3. ornithiscians - plant eating dinosaurs with thick skins

Coelophysis were theropods with two legs, long tail and long mouth like a crocodile. Coelophysis were found in America during the Bone Wars.

Sauropod found in England.

Platerosaurs was a big sauropod. It was 10 meters long and weighed 700 kg. The first one was found in Bavaria.

Bigger sauropod was Riojasauru, found in Argentina. It was 10 meters long and weighed up to three tonnes.

BIGGER AND STRONGER

Over millions of years, the Earth changed and so did dinosaurs. They were bigger and stronger.

In Jurassic Earth was warmer than before. There was more water and food so dinosaurs became bigger and stronger.

The largest dinosaurs were the sauropods. It ate plants. It had long neck and tail, but a very small head. They walked on four legs and they could not run because they were too heavy. It is very interesting that sauropods had many teeth, some of them had 600.

The biggest sauropods were Diplodocus, Apatosaurus, Brachiosaurus and Mamenchisaurus.

Sauropod had very dangerous enemies. They were meat eating dinosaurs Allosaurus and Creatosaurus.

In the sea lived Plesiosaurus and in the sky Pterodactyls. The largest Pterodactyl of all had wings 12 m wide - bigger than a small plane.

During the Cretaceus period, Pangaea broke into more continents which were divided by the sea. Dinosaurs evolved in each continent and they were different.

The dinosaurs were bigger than in the Jurassic period because the Earth was warmer and dinosaurs had more food to eat.

The biggest dinosaur was Argentinosaurus. It was 33-41 meters long and 6-7 meters high. Argentinosaurus ate three large trees every day. In that period lived also small but very dangerous dinosaur Deinonychus. It could walk, jump and run very fast. Deinonychus hunted in groups.

The bigger meat eating dinosaurs were Baryonyx, Spinosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex.