Table Of ContentCONTENTS
Introduction 4 Ready, set... go! 42
Story of life 6 Browsing giants 44
Finding fossils 8 Little and large 46
Fossil hunters 10 Plated stegosaurs 48
Dinosaur science 12 Armored ankylosaurs 50
Mesozoic Era 14 Toothy tales 52
Back to the Mesozoic 16 On the menu 54
Beneath the waves 18 Boneheads 56
Hunters in the sky 20 Top male 58
Soaring pterosaurs 22 Crests and frills 60
Dinosaur family tree 24 Spiky ceratopsians 62
Naming dinosaurs 26 Fine feathers 64
Inside out 28 Success story 66
Super senses 30 Eggs and young 68
Brainpower 32 Bringing up baby 70
Ultimate predators 34 On the move 72
Odd theropods 36 End of an era 74
Escaping the enemy 38 Life after the extinction 76
Battle royal 40 Glossary and index 78
Credits 80
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d i nosaurs
T h e that livspedec tin the distant past were the most
ac
S o m e were huge, bigger t ular creatures to ever walk the Earth. rs
ha e
n a h
ny other land ani Some even had f e a t
mal that has ever lived.
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Many had dram a t i c h o r defense and s
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US_004-005_Intro.indd 4 11/09/13 3:38 PM
s A lxasaurus
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5
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STORY OF LIFE
Dinosaurs are just part of the
a
y
m PRECAMBRIAN story of life on Earth, which
T 1
T A R 54 For billions of years, the only began about four billion years ago.
S – living things were bacteria and
E A R TMH S 600 similar simple microbes. During this vast span of time, a
F O R 4 dazzling variety of living things
have evolved and then died out,
Anomalocaris often in mass extinctions.
KEY
Earth’s timeline is divided into
eras, and these are further divided into
smaller time spans called periods.
GO a Early Earth Mesozoic Era
FORWARD my CAMBRIAN
3 SPACES 5
8 Complex animals, which evolved Paleozoic Era Cenozoic Era
4
– about 600 million years ago, became
1
malsong . 54 common in the world’s oceans. Mass extinction
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1 Simple green plants such as Cooksonia started 3
GO 4 –9
BACK – growing on land. Meanwhile, fish evolved into 1
2 SPACES 43 forms very similar to those that live today. 4
4 Cooksonia
6
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NEOGENE o ent QUATERNARY
taes Humans spread around the globe
Modern types of birds and mammals yr
appeared. The ancestors of humans 2 me p as a series of ice ages gave way
h to the modern world.
evolved on the plains of Africa. Argentavis t
23–2 mya
Uintatherium
You will need:
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• A small object to use as a counter for each person
BITTER END
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m The giant
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2 SPACES the place of the large dinosaurs. 6 spectacular dinosaurs.
GO
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2 SPACES
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252–201 mya
Peteinosaurus
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As life slowly recovered, the first 4
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7
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finding There are many different types of fossils
that provide scientists with important clues
about the past. try this maze to find some
fossils
fascinating fossils yourself.
sTART HERE
Everything we know about
dinosaurs
comes
from studying their
fossils
. Some are
remains
the of
body parts like
bones and F o ssilized shark tooth
teeth
, buried so long ago that
they have turned to StonE.
found by
Many fossils are
accident
. Even
scientists who
where
know
to look
nd Fossil mold
n fro often find fossils
er
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that them.
mud that turns to stone.
This one shows a trilobite,
a long-extinct sea creature.
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Petrified wood
Trees that have been turned
to stone preserve tree rings
that show how they grew.
Dinosaurs may have eaten
the leaves of these trees.
Dinosaur
tracks
The three toes of this
footprint show it was
made by a meat-eating
theropod dinosaur.
Trace fossils such as
this one preserve marks
made by animals.
Trapped
in amber
This spider got stuck
in sticky tree sap
millions of years ago.
The sap hardened into
rocklike amber, so
every detail of the
spider is preserved.
Body fossil
Most dinosaur fossils preserve
parts of their bodies, such as this
Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton. Usually,
the bones are scattered, but sometimes
9
they are joined together, as in life.
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Fossil hunters
Dinosaur fossils survive for millions of years because they
are sealed inside rocks. As rocks are worn away by the weather,
they reveal the fossils hidden in them. Scientists make special
expeditions to dig these out, sometimes finding evidence of
dinosaurs that no one knew existed.
Discovery
In some parts of the world,
rocks that date from the
dinosaur age contain
hundreds or even thousands
of dinosaur fossils. These sites
are famous, but many others
are still hidden underground,
waiting to be discovered by
keen-eyed fossil hunters.
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10
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Dental
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Reconstruction
Usually, some of the bones
are missing, so scientists use
their knowledge of similar
animals to fill in the gaps.
They can also figure out
the position and size of the
dinosaur’s muscles. Eventually,
they are able to build up a
picture of what the dinosaur
might have looked like.
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