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Bite-size answers to commonly asked questions from inquiring minds
Did you know?
Diplodocus - another huge sauropod - means ‘double beam’, a reference to its v-shaped bones in its tail.
Source: How It Works Magazine
A. I guess like most children their age, my two young sons are fascinated with dinosaurs. Their firm favourite is, perhaps inevitably, the T-Rex. “Was that the biggest ever dinosaur in the world dad?” they recently inquired. Great question I thought, so what’s the answer?
Well, the T-Rex wasn’t the biggest ever dinosaur to have roamed our planet. But establishing the actual size of dinosaurs isn’t as easy as you may think since we rarely find complete skeletons and estimates do vary considerably. However, although some palaeontologists claim there were larger dinosaurs (for example Bruhathkaysaurus, Amphicoelias and Puertasaurus to name but three), the Argentinosaurus (a sauropod who’s bones were found – believe it or not – in Argentina!) is widely considered to be the biggest dinosaur because of the amount of evidence unearthed. It is estimated to have reached lengths of 30+ metres/98 feet (longer than 3 London buses) and weigh 90 tonnes (around 17 elephants). Thank goodness it was a plant eater!
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Why did the dinosaurs disappear? What made them extinct?
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Source(s): How It Works magazine, National Museums Scotland, Scholastic