English — DinoLand
DinoLand is a free interactive dinosaur encyclopedia for children aged 3–12. Meet 17 prehistoric animals in original illustrations, with facts about how big they were, what they weighed and how they lived. Try the quiz, see how you measure up against them and play each animal’s roar.
🌍 Meet the dinosaurs!
- Tyrannosaurus — 12 m, 8 t, Carnivore: The king of the dinosaurs! T. rex had the strongest bite of any land animal.
- Brachiosaurus — 22 m, 40 t, Herbivore: A huge dinosaur with a very long neck. It could easily reach the tops of the tallest trees!
- Triceratops — 9 m, 6 t, Herbivore: Three horns on its face and a giant bony frill behind its head. Hard to miss!
- Stegosaurus — 9 m, 5 t, Herbivore: A dinosaur with big triangular plates on its back and spikes on its tail.
- Velociraptor — 2 m, 15 kg, Carnivore: A small, quick hunter with a curved claw on each foot. It had feathers too!
- Spinosaurus — 14 m, 7.4 t, Carnivore: The longest meat-eating dinosaur we know of! It had a tall sail on its back and fished in rivers.
- Ankylosaurus — 8 m, 6 t, Herbivore: A living tank! Bony armour covered its body, and its tail ended in a big club.
- Pteranodon — 7 m wingspan, 25 kg, Carnivore: A flying reptile with huge wings. Not a dinosaur, but a close relative of the dinosaurs!
- Diplodocus — 27 m, 15 t, Herbivore: One of the longest dinosaurs of all, with a tail like a giant whip!
- Parasaurolophus — 9.5 m, 5 t, Herbivore: The musician among dinosaurs! Its long crest worked like a trumpet.
- Plesiosaurus — 3.5 m, 200 kg, Carnivore: A sea reptile with a long neck. Not a dinosaur, though it lived at the same time!
- Allosaurus — 10 m, 2.5 t, Carnivore: One of the top predators of the Late Jurassic – fast and dangerous.
- Carnotaurus — 8 m, 1.5 t, Carnivore: A ‘bull’ of a dinosaur, with two horns on its head! One of the fastest big predators.
- Iguanodon — 10 m, 3 t, Herbivore: One of the first dinosaurs ever discovered. It had a sharp spike on each thumb!
- Giganotosaurus — 13 m, 8 t, Carnivore: A giant hunter from South America – one of the largest meat-eaters of all time!
- Maiasaura — 9 m, 3 t, Herbivore: The ‘good mother lizard’! It was found along with its nests and the remains of its young.
- Archaeopteryx — 0.5 m, 1 kg, Carnivore: The famous ‘first bird’! It had feathers and wings, but teeth and a long bony tail as well.
❓ Frequently asked questions about dinosaurs
- What are dinosaurs?
- Dinosaurs are a group of reptiles that first appeared many millions of years ago. Some grew into the largest animals ever to walk on land; others stayed small. The only dinosaurs still alive today are birds. The name comes from Greek words meaning ‘terrible lizard’.
- When did dinosaurs live?
- The first dinosaurs appeared more than 230 million years ago. They spread during the Mesozoic Era, which is made up of the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. The non-bird dinosaurs died out about 66 million years ago, but birds are still with us.
- Why did dinosaurs go extinct?
- About 66 million years ago a huge asteroid hit the Earth. Dust and debris filled the air and dimmed the sunlight, the climate cooled and food chains broke down. All the non-bird dinosaurs died out. The ancestors of today’s birds survived.
- Which dinosaur was the biggest?
- The long-necked dinosaurs included the largest land animals ever known. Diplodocus could be about 27 metres long, Brachiosaurus stood as tall as a four-storey building, and Argentinosaurus was among the heaviest. Picking an outright winner is hard, though: many of these giants are known only from incomplete skeletons.
- Which dinosaur was the most dangerous?
- That depends on what you mean by dangerous. T. rex had a bone-crushing bite, but Spinosaurus beat it for length. Little Velociraptor carried a curved claw on each foot, though scientists still don’t know whether it hunted in packs.
- Which dinosaurs could fly?
- Birds are living dinosaurs, and many of them can fly. Pteranodon and Quetzalcoatlus flew too, but they were pterosaurs – a separate group of reptiles related to the dinosaurs.
- What did dinosaurs eat?
- Diplodocus and Triceratops were herbivores, munching leaves, twigs and ferns. Tyrannosaurus, Velociraptor and Spinosaurus were carnivores and hunted other animals. And some dinosaurs, the omnivores, ate plants and small animals alike.
- Did birds come from dinosaurs?
- Yes! Today’s birds are the direct descendants of small feathered dinosaurs – and plenty of dinosaurs had feathers already. To a scientist, a chicken or a sparrow is really a tiny living dinosaur.
- How much did Tyrannosaurus weigh?
- A big Tyrannosaurus rex could weigh about eight tonnes and measure around 12 metres from nose to tail. Its largest teeth, root included, were about as long as a banana.
- How do scientists study dinosaurs?
- Scientists who study dinosaurs are called palaeontologists. They look for bones, teeth, eggs and footprints preserved in rock, and from these finds they work out what dinosaurs looked like and how they lived.