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 Do you know that …
 Dinosaurs were solely land animals. All so called marine or flying
dinosaurs were, in fact, separate groups of reptiles.
The biggest dinosaurs were 54 m long and could have weighed over
100 t, whilst the smallest individuals were only 50 cm long and weighed
merely 1 kg.
The huge herbivorous sauropods could have lived even 100 years long
(providing that they avoided Tyrannosaurs). They swallowed a few
hundred kilgorams of plants every day. The offspring had hatched out of 25 cm eggs
and then they grew rapidly putting on weight 3 kg a day.
The brains of the herbivores were paradoxically small –
Diplodocus which weighed 40 t had a brain of 0,5 kg only, whilst
Stegosaurus which weighed 10 t had a brain of 100 g!
Many dinosaurs were covered with feathers which allowed them keep
a constant body temperature.
The largest herds of duck-billed dinosaurs could have numbered
about 10 thousands members (the adult individuals weighed over 10 t).
Archosaurs could see perfectly at night alike contemporary cats.
Some dinosaurs were able to put on weight 2 – 3 kg a day.
Even the biggest dinosaurs must have been small as young. The
offspring of Diplodocus would hatch out of a football size eggs.
The majority of dinosaurs were too heavy to incubate. Hence, they
laid their eggs in the basins of the ground and covered them with
leafs and branches. In such hollows, under the influence of sunlight
and due to putrefying processes the heat necessary for hatching out
of eggs was generated.
Sauropods were so big that they had to keep eating all the time in
order to provide their systems with an ample quantity of food.
Many herbivores swallowed rocks. They were useful for grinding
food in their somaches.
The teeth of carnivores were sharp as daggers and resembled a saw.
 The teeth of the Royal Tyrannosaurus were 15 cm long which means,
they were longer than a man`s palm.
Not all predators hunted alone. Many smaller dinosaurs used to
unite into smaller groups in order to effectively face their
opponent, which often happened to be enormous.
Horns were used to defend against enemies as well as to struglles
between males of the same species.
The first dinosaur was named in 1824. It was Megalosaurus.
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