Page 56 - Everything You Know About Dinosaurs is Wrong
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We’ve found all the dinosaurs
We’ve discovered them all? Not even close! Right now, people are discovering new types of dinosaurs faster than ever before. There’s never been a more exciting time to be a palaeontologist!
People have been stumbling upon dinosaur bones for thousands of years and the first myths about dragons in China were probably fuelled by their discovery.
AROUND 2000 YEARS AGO
The ‘Bone Wars’ were waged between Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh – two palaeontologists who competed to be best in the world. TRICERATOPS, DIPLODOCUS, STEGOSAURUS and COELOPHYSIS were all discovered by their teams of fossil hunters.
1877 to 1892 The sensational first fossils of
SPINOSAURUS were discovered in Africa but later destroyed in the Second World War.
1915 TYRANNOSAURUS’s cousin
THANATOTHERISTES – meaning ‘reaper of death’ – was named, 10 years after being discovered in Alberta, Canada.
2020
The first dinosaurs to be found and described in Europe – MEGALOSAURUS and I G U A N O D O N – were discovered in the UK.
The fossil bird
ARCHAEOPTERYX was discovered in Germany.
AROUND 1824
The word ‘Dinosauria’ was invented by Sir Richard Owen, a biologist who would one day help build the Natural History Museum in London.
1861 VELOCIRAPTOR was
discovered in the Gobi Desert and, the following year, the first dinosaur eggs.
1924
PATAGOTITAN, the largest
dinosaur ever found, was discovered in Argentina.
1841
The giant predator TARBOSAURUS was discovered in Mongolia.
1955
The first non-bird dinosaur with feathers was discovered – SINOSAUROPTERYX.
1996
TODAY 52
2008