DINOSAURSWhat can they teach us about the past?

What exactly is a dinosaur?• These are not dinosaurs:

Let’s brainstorm dino characteristics…Characteristic Number of Votes from Class

How close were we? Dino features:

•Lived during Mesozoic Era (225-65 million years ago)

•Upright posture with legs directly underneath body

•Dinosaurs lived only on land so marine reptiles and pterosaurs are excluded

How close were we? Dino features:

•Offset thumb and feet reduced to four main toes

•Long, s-shaped neck

Major Groups of DinosaursSaurischians Ornithiscians

• Characters from the movie:▫ Little foot, sharp tooth

• Characters from the movie:▫ Duckie, spike, dome-

headed dinosaurs, Sarah

Can you see any similarities/differences yet?

It’s all in the hips...

•The two major groups are actually classified by the types of hip bones they have.

Saurischians- forward-facing pubis

Ornithiscians- rear-facing pubis

Ornithiscians

Thyreophora Ornithopoda Marginocephalia

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Saurischians

Sauropodomorpha Theropoda

Notes :

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Notes :

How I am supposed to remember all this?• If a thyreophoran walked beside you, it would

scrape your thigh because of all the scutes on its body.

•Ornithologists study birds and ornithopods have beaks like a duck (bird )

• The margins of your paper are around your paper and ceph- means head, so marginocephalians have stuff going on around their heads.

•Sauropods are the largest dinosaurs, so if they stepped on you, you would be sore.

•Theropods would eat you, so they are blood thirsty.

Do you get it?

•List the group of dinosaur to which each of the following characters belongs and tell why:

1. Spike2. Little Foot3. Sarah4. Sharp Tooth5. Duckie6. Petrie