Dinosaurs are reptiles, and probably the most famous kind of reptiles that have ever lived on the earth. There were about 350 different kinds of them, each one with their own speciality that made them well-fit to survive on the earth in that period. One of the questions you ask yourself is probably: Were the dinos warm or cold blooded? The answers are mixed. The footprints show that most of the carnivores were capable of high speed. The vegetarians were mostly slow and huge, although only about 20 to 25 of the different dinosaurs were huger than a rabbit. So that is why most of the people working with this say that they were probably both. Suddenly, about 65 million years ago, the dinos became extinct. Why? They had survived on earth for hundreds of millions of years, and suddenly they are gone. What happened?

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We have to look for the answer in the history of earth. Earlier, earth was a miniature of the sun, glowing, and hot. When earth started to get colder, the possibility of life came, and organisms started to appear. And this went on for hundreds of millions of years, until the dinos came. But the earth and the wheather continued to get colder. Yet, a planet changes over millions of years, so the answer is not hte climatic changes. Now we have found the probable cause of extinction. about 65 million years ago a huge piece of stone, socalled an asteroide, hit the earth with katastrofic strength, and most of life on earth died out.

If anyone has seen "deep impact" or "armageddon" you would know a little bit of the dissaster that a huge asteroid would cause. Well, back to the story: This asteroide hit the earth. The presswawe from the touch-down killed most life on nearly half of the globe. The rest of the big animals died out when the dust stopped most of the sunlight. Most of the dinosaurs lived closely to the place the asteroide hit, the rest of earth was either covered with water or too cold for the dinosaurs. After all, they did not have fure... Small mammals like mise-lookalike animals would survive just long enough to understand that they needed to get away from this dead place, and so all creatures escaped to try to survive.

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For years our planes was nearly as dead, but as several years went by, the dust slowly disapeared from our atmosfear, and life could once again start. My guess is that birdlike creatures had sees from plants in their belly, and let them fall on the dead soil, where they once again could grow. The Dinosaurs where dead, and still they left something of themselves for us to see every day. The birds are the dinoraurs closest relatives, but creatures like the carnivores or the planteating dinosaurs does not have any trace left but their bones in the earth.


To the left you have a list with links to different sites with info on different types of Dinosaurs and other creatures that lived with them.

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THE DINOSAURS

The dinosaurs were one of nature's greatest inventions, and many people today find it amusing and exciting to find out more about them. The probleme is that the dinosaurs died out long before man first began to develop. So the only way of finding out anything about them, is to study the skeletons and their footprints in the face of mother earth. The dinosaurs were divided into two groups on land, and two in the water. On land you had herbivores and carnivores. In the water you had fish-like and other dinosaurs. The dinsaurs on land were the most famous, and some of the most well known is the Diplodocus, the T-Rex, the Triceratops and the Brontosaurus. These were among the first found species, and the easiest to recognize for those people that don't work with old dino bones all day.

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Most of what we know about dinosaurs is what we can learn from television today. Not many people want to read a lot of books about something dull and dry, so movies were made to tell people about these horrifying creatures. "Godzilla" was a movie made in the 1950's, when television and movies were young. Now there has been released a new movie about this T-Rex like creature. This T-Rex lookalike was a terrible man-eater that filled the viewers' minds with fear. That way of showing the dinosaurs is just the same way that "Jaws" made people terrified about sharks. And that is very unfair to a creature unable to defend itself....

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Since the dinosaurs are unable to show us how they lived in their time on earth, it is up to us to either guess or let science find out more stuff. Like how they mated and how they raised kids. Now we know that the dinos laid eggs, like birds. We assume they mated like other animals today laying eggs. Take the tortois. It is laying eggs, but does not take care of the children. We assume that the dinos took care of their children, especially the carnivores. And the grasseaters had to learn hov to survive and escape the hunters. In other words, they had to learn to survive and find food. The tortois does not need to hunt, since it's a "grasseater", or a non-carnivore, to put it that way. The tortois leaves it all to instinct.

We have also found out lots of interesting stuff about hunting and packing. For example, we know now that the T-Rex lived in packs at between 6-20 animals, depending on how many grasseaters lived in the area. They hunted mostly like the lions do today, in familygroup where most of the grownups attended. The speed of a Rex is estimated to be around 50 km an hour, and most of you would say "hey, that is rather slow! How could they catch anything?" Then I answer you this: The T-Rex was amongst the largest of the carnivores, and hunted the largest grasseaters. The grasseaters where so huge that they could not move unless they kept at least 3 of their feet at ground, and that means... SLOW. The Rex did not need to be any faster, for its prey is estimated to move no faster than around 20 km pr hour anyway.

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The dinos did not have very large brains. The smartest dino was also the most terrifying of them all, even though it was not the largest. The Velociraptor was to be the most aggressive, most dangerous and the smartest of all the carnivores. The small body allowed it to move very fast, and it is estimated to have had a high speed of over 90 km/h (55 mph)!! That made it capable of catching almost everything it wanted. The small size made it impossible to catch the largest prey, but it is assumed that they hunted in groups of 5 or more to catch larger prey, so they did not need to hunt so often.

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The grasseaters were most likely flocking to seek the comfort and safety of large groups, making it more secure for themselves. Still, several of the larger dinos, like Diplodocus, were too large to manage to stay in large groups, mostly because a large group will eat every little bit of food available. Still they stayd in pacs up to around 20 animals. A fully grown Diplodocus or Braciosaurus had no enemies, but a half grown animal could easily be caught by feks Rex . Most likely they moved in smaller groups of dozens, unlike the tiny dinos that probably moved around in groups of several hundreds. As they were threatened by dinos like the terrifying T-Rex and the very smart Velociraptor, we believe that they protected their youngs for as long as they could. Probably by watching their eggs, and having guards. It is a guess that they lived like the ostrich, where several females laid eggs in one hole in the ground, and then let one of the females take care of the nest, while the rest were guarding. As for the food they ate, we know that the grass eaters (actually a wrong name to call them, grass did not exist yet) ate green leaves, and the plants growing around nearby. But if the larger animals was to survive, they would have to eat non-stop and would not have time to breed or raise their youngs. By studying the dino droppings, we have found out that the grass eaters also swollowed stones to help themselves to digest the food faster. In other words, the grasseaters swollowed their food without chewing, but unlike cows, they did not chew it in peace and quiet.

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Among with tiny organismes, the stones helped the dinoes breake down the food to smaller particles so they were able to digest it. Because of the very large amount of micro organismes in their stomack, they would also produce large amounts of gass, which lead to farthing... Some of the grasseaters developed some bodily protection, like Triceratops, that had three horns in the face, like the name said. Ankylosaurus had a lump at the tip of its tale, that it used to bang the attackers, quite effective actually. It has been discovered that Triceratops had bloodveins all over the "crown", and we think that they used it for breeding, to attract females by pumping blood up to the skin, so the "crown" would change to a deeper glowing color. Also Stegosaurus had lots of boned plates along the back, also covered with traces of bloodveins. We believe that this was in use mostly by males under breeding season, to scare other males away from its territory by pumping blood close to the skin, and by both sexes to scare and confuse attacking carnivores. Stegosaurus had spikes at the end of its tale, and they would use it for defence. They could easily kill a Rex if they would hit at the right plase, the soft belly. But.. they would, of course, have to get passed Rex'es jaws first...

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Others had armored bodies, that made it difficult for the carnivores to hurt them. The safety of a group was a lot of help, but sometimes the animals were unlucky enough to get sick or hurt one way or another. The males could get hurt in fights over the females, or in play. The females could get hurt from an unfriendly flockmember, a male trying to mate or other things. Of course, in those times, the earth was still young, and volcanos could erupt, and storms or earthquakes could take place. All of this made it necessary for the animals to fight for their excistence, not only against predators. As already told, the dinos did not have very large brains. Because of this, it is believed that they mostly existed and lived by instincts and few thoughts. They were unable to change their way of living for any reason. The more they changed their looks and body to the better, the more difficult it became to adapt to environmental changes. In the end, they may have reached a dead end in their developement. That may been one of the reasons that caused their extinction...

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Much of this is guessings, and there is not possible to find out everything about a dinosaur, just by looking at their bones. But we can find out fysical look, their way of mooving, probably some of the color or markings on their body, but we do have some problems finding out what sounds they made, how their instincts worked, hunting methods in details and flock behaviour. We can get a few very good hints by looking at animals like sharks and crocks, since theese are creatures that existed in the same time as the dinosaurs, and also by examining the droppings to find out what they was feeding on, but it will be just as much guessing.

Alltho, MY guess is that small carnivore babies would have to learn something from their parents. We did belive that dinosaurs laid eggs like the tortoise, and then left them. Good enough for grasseaters, that would have to learn two things: How to stay away from scary stuff, and how to eat. All this innstinct will tell them. But what about carnivores? Hunting tactics can come from innstinct, but will it be good enough to make the baby kill before it dies of hunger? I would guess that they stayed with mother until they where a little bit bigger than a large dog, imprenting in their mind what they could see of mother's hunting. Maybe they lived of dead animals like scavengers until they managed to kill on their own? maybe they stayed in a pack with brothers and sisters, killing together like wolwes, until they managed to kil on their own? I do not know, I can only guess! This is only one of the theories about the extinction of these wonderful creatures. Maybe I'll find out more about some of the other theories as well. Visit me again some other time, and you might read some more!