Things You Didn’t Know About Dinosaurs

Dinosaur is one of the most famous ancient creatures on Earth, with countless intriguing mysteries still being uncovered to this day.

You may already know that no matter how much one might try to deny it, dinosaurs are the most famous prehistoric creatures. Huge, terrifying,… and we can’t know much about them at all. Therefore, it’s not an exaggeration to say that they are the greatest mystery that everyone wants to explore.

However, science is continuously advancing, and we are uncovering more and more about them. So, let’s explore the top 10 fascinating facts about these creatures.

1. Initially, people thought dinosaurs were… elephants?

In 1677, English professor Robert Plot discovered a gigantic bone buried in the ground at a quarry in Oxford. At that time, other scientists were very confused, and they hastily concluded that it must be the bone of a… gigantic elephant. Yes, at that time, no one could have imagined that such large animals as dinosaurs ever existed on Earth, which is why they thought of the largest land animal currently known.

Gradually, scientists began to discover more new things. In 1842, zoologist William Buckland made waves by asserting that these bones belonged to a giant extinct reptile, through the discovery of many other similar bones to what Robert had found back then. He called it “dinosaur.”

2. What colors did dinosaurs have?

Dinosaurs could have had many different skin colors.

You’ve probably thought about this question many times, right? Of course, we don’t know because fossils only provide information about skeletons, leaving us with no clues about skin color. Everything you see in movies is merely speculation.

For many people, dinosaurs could have had many different skin colors. If many modern reptiles have green skin, why couldn’t dinosaurs? They might also have had colorful markings on their bodies, such as a bright crest to attract mates during the breeding season.

3. How can we differentiate male and female dinosaurs?

This is basically the question of the century, and it’s very hard to answer. Until now, all we can do is speculate because dinosaurs left us nothing but a few incomplete skeletons and a pile of fossilized eggs.

During excavations, scientists often find dinosaur skeletons of different sizes lying next to each other, and over time, they have speculated that: the males and females of a species would not have the same size. According to scientists, female Tyrannosaurus Rex would be larger than the male.

4. Dinosaurs… weren’t very intelligent creatures

Despite their relatively gigantic bodies, dinosaurs were not very intelligent because they had tiny brains. For example, although weighing between 2 to 3 tons, the Stegosaurus had a brain the size of a walnut.

And if we talk about the most intelligent dinosaur? It must be the Troodon, as its brain was the size of a chicken egg. Perhaps this is why the Troodon is described as relatively agile and cunning with a predatory stance, while the Stegosaurus is considered a slow-reacting dinosaur?

Essentially, the brain of dinosaurs is comparable to that of modern reptiles like turtles, lizards, or crocodiles.

5. Why did they quickly become the dominant species on Earth?

In the early Mesozoic Era, about 250 million years ago, 90% of species disappeared. This created an open environment for dinosaurs to thrive. When the second extinction event unexpectedly occurred at the end of the Triassic period, around 210 million years ago, dinosaurs had no rivals and quickly became the dominant species.

6. Why do some dinosaurs walk on two legs while others walk on four?

One common feature of dinosaurs is that their two front legs are always shorter than their two hind legs. Thus, all dinosaurs theoretically could walk upright on their two hind legs. However, why do most herbivorous dinosaurs not?

The answer here is the factor of “weight.” Essentially, having bodies that grew too large and heavy forced them to revert to walking on four legs, rather than being able to stand on two.

7. How did dinosaurs care for their eggs?

Dinosaurs laid eggs in a circular pattern in a deep nest dug in the ground.

According to the fossils found by scientists, dinosaurs laid eggs and arranged them in a circular pattern in a deep nest dug in the ground. Initially, scientists believed they only laid eggs and did not care for them like most reptiles. However, they eventually realized that dinosaurs exhibited brooding behavior when they found dinosaur skeletons covering their nests.

8. Were the ancestors of dinosaurs very small compared to them?

Research indicates that the ancestors of dinosaurs – the species Lagosuchus belonging to the primitive Archosaur reptiles, only measured the size of a rabbit: 50 cm long and weighing 100 grams, with shorter front legs than hind legs like later dinosaurs.

The most famous ancient dinosaur is believed to be the Eoraptor (meaning “dawn thief”), which lived during the Triassic period about 225 million years ago, discovered in 1991 in Argentina. It only reached a length of 1 meter and weighed just 11 kg.

Later, scientists found many other skeletons even smaller. The smallest may be the Microraptor, measuring just 40 cm long, while the largest known is the Amphicoelias, which reached lengths of up to 60 meters.

9. Did some dinosaur species have the ability to regulate their body temperature?

Scientists believe that Sauropod dinosaurs had the ability to regulate their body temperature.

Normally, this would be impossible since dinosaurs were reptiles. This means they would have cold blood like lizards and needed to bask in the sun to warm up. However, for the Sauropod dinosaurs, because they were so large, it was suggested that if they absorbed heat from the sun, they wouldn’t have time to release that heat. Therefore, their ability to regulate body temperature is clearly the most plausible hypothesis.

Additionally, according to research results from the bone cross-sections of some smaller carnivorous dinosaurs, scientists recognized that if there were some cold-blooded dinosaurs, then other species must have been warm-blooded. This is a characteristic of birds, which are believed to be descendants of dinosaurs.

10. They grow big, but when they hatch, they are tiny

Even for the largest dinosaur species when fully grown, there were small individuals, which is quite different from human imagination. Some hatchling dinosaurs weighed less than 3 kg and measured only 40-50 cm in length. The reason baby dinosaurs are so small is that they were born from eggs that were, on average, only 45 cm long, with the largest eggs scientists found measuring only about 60 cm.

Of course, in such cases, dinosaur eggs couldn’t be larger. Increasing size would lead to hatchlings being unable to break through the eggshell when hatching, meaning they could easily get stuck inside.

In contrast, baby dinosaurs grew rapidly due to the need for quick development to gain enough strength for self-defense against other dangerous predators.

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