MESOZOIC—DINOS!
VOLUME 9, ISSUE 8, APRIL 2020
THIS MONTH
DINOSAURS!
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Dinosaurs
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What is a Dinosaur?
page 2
DINOSAURS! When people think paleontology, they think of scientists working in the hot sun of Colorado National Monument or the Badlands of South Dakota and Wyoming finding enormous, fierce, and long-gone dinosaurs.
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Bird / Lizard Hip? page 5 Size Activity 1 page 10 Size Activity 2 page 13 Size Activity 3 page 43 Diet page 46
Trackways page 53
Colorado Fossils and Dinosaurs page 66
POWER WORDS
Dinosaurs safely evoke terror. Better than any
scary movie, these were
actually living breathing beasts!
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articulated: fossil
bones arranged in
proper order
Articulated skeleton of the Tyrannosaurus rex
from the American Museum of Natural History
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endothermic: an
organism produces body heat through
metabolism
be reviewing the information about dinosaurs, but there is an interview with him at the end of this issue. Meeting him, you will know instantly that he loves his job! It doesn’t matter if you become an electrician, auto mechanic, dancer, computer programmer, author, or
What was the biggest dinosaur? What was the smallest
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metabolism: chemical
processes that occur within a living organism in order to maintain life
dinosaur? What color were they? Did they live in herds? What can their skeletons tell us? What evidence is there so that we can understand more about how these animals lived. Are any still alive today?
CAREER CONNECTION
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Meet Dr. Holtz,
Dinosaur
paleontologist, I truly hope that
you have tremendous job satisfaction, like Dr. Holtz!
Paleontologist! page 73
To help us really understand more about dinosaurs, we have the famous dinosaur paleontologist, Dr. Holtz helping with this issue. He will not only
So, grab your shovels as we Dig into Dinosaurs!
COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY EXTENSION
4-H PROGRAMS ARE AVAILABLE TO ALL WITHOUT DISCRIMINATION
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DINOSAURS! — What Is a Dinosaur?
Stegosaurus at American
Museum of Natural History
Dinosaurs, Ichthyosaurs, Pterosaurs are all big reptilian animals of the Mesozoic. What
are the characteristics that
make dinosaurs distinct from the others?
POWER WORDS
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acetabulum: the
socket of the hipbone, into which the head of
the femur fits characteristics: a
feature belonging typically to a thing and serving to identify it
hierarchy: organization
in which groups are ranked one above the
other according to
status
In Paleontology 5: Speciation,
activities focused on
characteristics of organisms,
and how scientists use those to separate organisms into a
hierarchy (Domain, Kingdom,
Phylum, Order, Class, Family,
Genus, species). Scientists use
the characteristics of the
organisms that are new or the same as the ancestor
Ichthyosaur at American
Museum of Natural History (note: she was giving live birth!)
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perforate acetabulum:
dinosauria group (dinosaurs and birds)
is defined by a perforate acetabulum,
which can be thought of as a "hip-socket"
characteristics to separate
organisms into different species.
Directions:
speciation: the
Pterosaur Pterodactylus kochi
found in Germany
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What do you think are the characteristics of dinosaurs? Record your answers. Examine the skeletal drawings of the
formation of new and distinct species in the course of change
through time
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Tyrannosaurus rex (Sue at
the Field Museum in
Chicago) and Prestosuchus chiniquensis (at the
American Museum of Natural History in New York City) on pages 3-4. Compare the dinosaur and non-dinosaur to find differences between the two. Circle what you see is different.
Perforate acetabulum
(the hole in the hip where the ball of the upper leg
bone (femur) sits) allows
for upright stance. ball of the upper leg attaches so the dinosaur can stand
upright
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Characteristics for a dinosaur
include:
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That ’ s it! That is what
defines a dinosaur from a non-dinosaur!
○ Number of fingers and toes (hand had the fourth finger—ring finger and fifth finger—pinkie finger reduced, and the foot had three toes)
○ number of vertebrae (3 or more) attaching to the hip bones
MATERIALS
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Print pages 3-4 Paper Pencil computer with internet access printer
○ hole in the hip socket
(acetabulum) where the
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DINOSAURS! — What Is a Dinosaur?
Above: Tyrannosaurus rex Sue, Field Museum Chicago, IL, a dinosaur Below: Prestosuchus chiniquensis, American Museum of Natural History NYC NY, a suchian reptile
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DINOSAURS! — What Is a Dinosaur?
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- 1m
Above: Tyrannosaurus rex Sue, sketch of a dinosaur
Below: Prestosuchus chiniquensis, sketch of a suchian reptile
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DINOSAURS! — Bird or Lizard Hip
You will generate a list of
The proto-dinosaurs (ancestors, or dinosaur-like animals) were
bipedal (walking on two legs). With lots of time and mutations
that were favorable, dinosaurs split into two major groups: bird-
hipped (Order Ornithischia)
dinosaurs and lizard-hipped
(Order Saurischia) dinosaurs.
In the first paleontology lesson, there was an activity on these crazy science names, and what
they really mean. ornith = bird,
saur = lizard, and ischia = ischium, one of the three bones of the hip (ilium, ischium, and sacrum). The ischium (depicted or
POWER WORDS
ornithischian and saurischian dinosaurs, and collect some of their data. Each table has an example to follow.
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bipedal: an animal
using only two legs for walking; bi = two, ped = foot
clade: group of
organisms descended from a common
Directions:
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Use only scientifically supported information about dinosaurs. There is a lot misinformation, so be careful. Verify that you have
found sources from
ancestor
mass: the quantity of
matter which a body contains—how much
matter pulled down by
gravity is weight
universities or museums. Check the author, and verify that person is an authority. Different dinosaur Families (or Clades) are identified in the table. Search on the dinosaur Family, verify the source you use, and read about the Family (or Clade). Search for the Family or
Clade’s “type specimen”
and complete the information on that species. If you
cannot locate the type specimen you can select
any species within the Family
(or Clade). Record Class (Ornithischia or Saurischia).
Copy and paste an image of that dinosaur in a word document, and resize to about 3” by 3”. Identify the dinosaur.
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proto: original, primitive type specimen: the
specimen, or each of a set of specimens, on which the description and name of a new species is based
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species, and if you can find it, the estimated
mass (weight).
Under notes, record location it was found. Cut out your pictures and place on your timeline in the correct time range. Identify if the dinosaur is
an ornithischian or saurischian, and glue.
Do you see any patterns?
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Record the time (or range of time) that it lived.
Record the length of this
circled in red directional arrows)
points back towards the tail in
ornithischian like a bird’s
ischium, but forwards, towards
the arms in saurischian, like
lizards. Note that the
ornithischian skull has a
predentary bone identified in green which is not present in the
saurischian skull.
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MATERIALS
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computer with internet access (if you don’t have a computer or internet access, check out your county library!)
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print pages 6-9 (single or double-sided) color pencils pencil or pen glue stick or tape your Phanerozoic Timeline
On page 6, is that dinosaur an ornithischian or saurischian dinosaur?
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DINOSAURS! — Bird or Lizard Hip
Dinosaurs and other reptiles, amphibians, birds,
POWER WORDS
and mammals all have the same basic structure of their anatomy. Above is a labeled diagram of
dinosaur anatomy.
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anatomy: bodily structure of humans, animals, and other living organisms
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DINOSAURS! — Bird or Lizard Hip
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DINOSAURS! — Bird or Lizard Hip
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DINOSAURS! — Bird or Lizard Hip
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DINOSAURS! — Size
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Each image has the different
The sauropod dinosaurs
POWER WORDS
dimensions of the dinosaur.
For example, Tyrannosaurus
rex is 12 feet high at the hips and 42 feet long. Use the tape measure for body length and body height. If you are working in the grass with the streamers, leave a bit of streamer weighted down with rocks. After you have the basic
measurements, outline the
shape of the animal, using the images to guide the drawing. Stand back to get a better view, and correct the outline as needed.
reached the upper hypothetical limits of how big a terrestrial
animal can be. The largest predator to ever walk the Earth was the Spinosaurus. Not all dinosaurs reached the these massive sizes. The smallest dinosaurs were the size of chickens or crows.
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hypothesis (plural
hypotheses): proposed explanation made limited evidence as a
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starting point for further investigation
hypothetical: best
estimate or education guess
terrestrial: of or
relating to the Earth
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In the last activity, you
conducted a computer search
on different dinosaurs, including their sizes and collecting images. All the images were scaled about the same size to add to your timeline, but they are actually different sizes. In this activity, you will observe those sizes for yourself.
A Triceratops fossil
specimen has evidence of T. rex tooth marks on it’s frill. They lived in the same area at the same time.
Directions:
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Collect the materials and supplies and head outside to
4’ | 1.3 m
MEASUREMENTS
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Body length measurement is from nose to tip of tail (do not include horns) Body height is measured from the highest limb, e.g. from the hip to toes in the
T. rex, and from the
shoulders to the fingers
in Argentinosaurus
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12’ | 4 m
a large area, like a park or school yard.
MATERIALS
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steel tape measurer (i.e. 25’) print pages 11-12 (single or double sided) ~5 large sidewalk chalks
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If you have a large grassy area, use the crepe paper streamers. Even better, If you have a large blacktop play area or parking lot, use sidewalk chalk. You can sketch the details of each animal’s features in chalk.
or
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~5 crepe paper streamers (bright color) and you might want to grab some friends or family to help you
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DINOSAURS! — Size
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DINOSAURS! — Size
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DINOSAURS! — Size
This next activity is another way to comprehend the size, with a life-sized puzzle of a Tyrannosaurus rex skull. The image was taken at the American Museum of Natural History in 2004 of the T. rex on display (full image above).
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- Your mission, should you
- together. Use some of
choose to accept it, is to put the puzzle back together. Print pages 15-42. Find a large space, and start to put the image back together. At this point, do not trim the margins. the margins for overlap to tape, and trim the unwanted margins.
Hang up your T. rex
puzzle!
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Tape or glue your picture
Directions:
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The Tyrannosaurus rex
image was cropped to just the skull, and then enlarged to life-sized of 46 inches by 41.33 inches. It was divided into 9.5” x 7.5” grid, with the right margin and the bottom margin in smaller pieces. The image was cropped into each grid.
MATERIALS
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computer with printer print pages 15-42 single-sided paper scissors glue stick or tape a large area to lay out your puzzle
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DINOSAURS! — Size
The final puzzle is of this picture, but enlarged to life-size.
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DINOSAURS! — Size
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DINOSAURS! — Size
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DINOSAURS! — Size
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DINOSAURS! — Size
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DINOSAURS! — Size
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DINOSAURS! — Size