Dinosaurs What Happened to the dinosaurs? By Linda C. Johnson

History of Dinosaurs Dinosaur means “fearfully great lizard”. Dinosaurs lived between about 230 million and 65 million years ago.

Dinosaurs lived on the earth for over 165 million years, but then they mysteriously became extinct.

There were lots of different kinds of dinosaurs that lived at different times. Some were huge, and others were much smaller.

Some dinosaurs could move quite quickly on two legs.

Others walked on four legs very slowly and clumsy.

What Dinosaurs Ate Different dinosaurs like to eat different things. The diplodocus dinosaur liked to eat leaves. These dinosaurs are called herbivores.

Dinosaurs like the velociraptor, or the T-Rex liked to eat meat. These dinosaurs are called carnivores.

Some dinosaurs ate plants and meat. Dinosaurs who ate plants and meat are called omnivores. Gallimimus and Ornithomimus were omnivores.

All of the dinosaurs looked different. Some had bumpy skin, horns, armor plating or wings. There were lots of other differences, too.

Extinction of Dinosaurs Nobody knows exactly what happened to the dinosaurs. Some people think that an asteroid caused changes on the earth that the dinosaurs could not tolerate.

Some people think that volcanos destroyed the dinosaurs.

Some people think that dinosaurs died from a sudden drop in the temperature.

Some people think that the dinosaurs contacted a disease that killed all of the dinosaurs.

All that is left of the dinosaurs are fossils. These are dinosaur bones that have been discovered in the earth and rock.

Scientists still wonder about why the dinosaurs disappeared. What do you think happened to the dinosaurs?