Discovering Dinosaurs

Discovering Dinosaurs

Finding Fossils How do we know dinosaurs lived on Earth? Scientists called paleontologists discover fossils in rocks all over the world. Studying fossils helps them learn about dinosaurs, including what they looked like, where they lived, and what they ate.

Bone fossils start to form after the death of a dinosaur. Over time, layers of mud, sand, or dirt cover the remains of the dead dinosaur. Once covered, the bones are protected from scavengers as well as rain and other weather conditions. They remain underground until they are discovered millions of years later. Sometimes the dinosaur's bones have turned to stone. In other cases, hard mud surrounds the bones, but the bones have actually decayed. Paleontologists can study the spaces where the bones used to be. They can then recreate the bones based on the shapes of the spaces left behind. Paleontologists have found many different types of dinosaur fossils, including bones, footprints, teeth, nests, and eggs.

These paleontologists are excavating, or carefully digging, bone fossils out of the ground. After recording information about them, the paleontologists will wrap the fossils to keep them safe. Then they will take the fossils to a museum, where they will examine them. Paleontologists will study different features of the fossils, such as their shape and color. They'll consider where the fossils were discovered and how deep underground they were discovered.

By comparing their finds to other fossils, paleontologists try to figure out what type of dinosaur they have discovered. Sometimes they can fit bone fossils together to form a complete skeleton. However, it's rare that a complete skeleton is found together or can be put together over time. Most dinosaurs had hundreds of bones, so it is difficult to find all of them. Scientists use other dinosaur skeletons as models for the ones they are trying to put together.

Learning from Fossils Paleontologists use many other types of animal skeletons to help them learn about dinosaur skeletons. Although dinosaurs are extinct, many animals alive today share certain characteristics with them. Some dinosaur bones may be bigger than those of animals alive today. However, the shapes of certain bones and the way their bones fit together are sometimes related.