D for Dinosaur

My son has been preoccupied with Dinosaurs after watching this film. It is about an orphaned dinosaur who is raised by lemurs who then joins an arduous journey to the nesting grounds after a meteorite shower destroys his family home. His favorite dinosaur here is the T-Rex, and so since then, my days are quite filled with questions about Dinosaurs.

Did you know that.....

The word dinosaur comes from the Greek language and means ‘terrible lizard’. The word was coined by English paleontologist Richard Owen in 1842 and was meant to refer to dinosaur's impressive size rather than their scary appearance.

Dinosaurs lived and evolved for over 185 million years until they became extinct. The cause has not been proven yet, but many believe that an asteroid Over 9 miles wide hit the earth in the Gulf of Mexico.

For almost 90 years, T-Rex was the largest known predator to have ever walked on the Earth. It was not until Giganotosaurus was discovered in Argentina in the 1990s that T-Rex was beat by a larger discovered predator. Tyrannosaurus was one of the last Dinosaurs to die out.

Birds descended from a type of dinosaurs known as theropods.

Source: Fun Dinosaur Facts for Kids

I'm also looking forward to read to him this book about dinosaurs....
Image source: amazon.com

This is my entry for ABC Wednesday