Top 5 Myths about Dinosaurs Probably you didn't know

Hi, yah folks here on my first ever blog we are unravelling the facts about dinosaurs...

  

When the first dinosaur bone was described in 1676, it was thought to come from an elephant or perhaps a giant. Over a century later, scientists realised such fossils came from a creature they named Megalosaurus, portrayed as a sort of stocky, overgrown lizard. Then, in 1842, leading anatomist Richard Owen recognised Megalosaurus as part of a whole new group of animals, which he named Dinosauria, or “Terrible Lizards”.

Since then, around 700 different dinosaur species have been described, with more found, every month. Our ideas about dinosaurs have also changed radically. The dinosaurs we know today are very different from the ones in the books you may have read as a child.
So, here are the Top 5 Myths that were completely different from the myths you were told.

1. Dinosaurs Were Instantly Incinerated by the Meteor Impact

No, that's not true About 65 million years ago, a mile-wide meteor or comet smashed into Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, raising a cloud of dust and ash that spread around the world, blotted out the sun, and caused plants worldwide to wither. The popular perception is that dinosaurs (along with pterosaurs and marine reptiles) were killed by this explosion within hours, but in fact, it may have taken as long as a couple of hundred thousand years for the last straggling dinosaurs to starve to death.

2. Velociraptors Hunted in Packs

There’s no evidence still that velociraptors hunted in packs. To date, all of the dozen or so identified velociraptor specimens have been of solitary individuals. The idea that velociraptors ganged up on their prey in cooperative packs probably stems from the discovery of associated deinonychus remains in North America; this larger raptor may have hunted in packs in order to bring down larger duck-billed dinosaurs such as tenontosaurus, but there's no particular reason to extrapolate those findings to velociraptor (but then again, there's no particular reason not to).

3. Tyrannosaurus Rex did not walk the Earth during the Jurassic period

You know what Steven Spielberg lied to you. This massive king of the dinosaurs actually roamed the Earth towards the end of all dinosaurs – during the late Cretaceous period. The Tyrannosaurus Rex was, in fact, one of the last non-aviary dinosaurs to roam prior to the great extinction event at the end of the late Cretaceous period. During this time the earth was swollen with a wide array of species of dinosaurs and increasing diversity among those that made it through the Jurassic period into the Cretaceous period.

4. Flying reptiles were dinosaurs

Flying reptiles called pterosaurs first appeared just after the dinosaurs, and then died out at the same time as the dinosaurs. The largest grew to the size of a small aeroplane. However, while they were close relatives, they were not true dinosaurs.

5.Dinosaurs were all scaly

When dinosaurs were first discovered, it seemed obvious that because they were related to crocodiles and lizards, they must have been scaly. And many dinosaurs – including duckbills, horned dinosaurs, sauropods, and armoured dinosaurs – do preserve scale impressions. But in the 1970s, palaeontologists began wondering if some dinosaurs might have been feathered, like their bird relatives.
This was considered wild speculation at the time, but in 1997 a small carnivorous dinosaur named Sinosauropteryx was found to be covered not with scales, but a soft, fuzzy down. Since then, feathers have been discovered on the plant-eating ornithopods, fanged heterodontosaurs, and many families of carnivorous dinosaurs including Tyrannosaurus Rex - meaning that T. rex was probably covered in feathers, not scales.

So, that's all amigo hope you enjoyed reading I'll be back with more interesting posts for you until then ba bye.

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