In 1843, paleontologists discovered traces of some monstrous birds in the sand slabs of the geological deposits of Connecticut (a state in the eastern United States). In comparison with these meter-long paws, which left their imprints in the stone annals of the Earth, the elephant's foot turned out to be miniature. How tall were the "birds" walking along the coast of the prehistoric sea?

They weren't birds. In the Mesozoic era of the history of the Earth, from the Jurassic period (approximately 200`000`000 years ago) to the end of the Cretaceous period (about 70`000`000 years ago), giant lizards lived on our planet. Some of them, like kangaroos, ran on their hind legs. Their tracks were like those of a bird.

It was an amazing time! The Earth has never seen such monsters before and is unlikely to see them again. And the land, and the sea, and the air were given to them in possession.

Endless coniferous and fern forests were inhabited by all kinds of lizards. They flew between the trees on leathery, parchment-like wings. Nimble and nimble dinosaurs the size of a chicken darted through the clearings, and in the swamp, slowly, waddling from side to side, a huge animal, like a house, was swarming.

Types of dinosaurs

For four billion years of the existence of life, the Earth did not know other creatures as large as the brachiosaurus and brontosaurus.

Clumsy, like a deck, a torso weighing tens of tons was supported by massive columns-legs. Each leg is twice as tall as a person! The neck, long and flexible, like a snake, crowned with a tiny head, was in constant motion: the head was engaged in its almost only business - food. Like a giant boa constrictor, a long tail stretched behind the body, one blow of which could have killed an elephant in its place. Scientists have named this lizard a brachiosaurus. He is the champion in height among all giants known to science: twice as tall as a giraffe. And by stretching his neck, he could look out the window of the fourth floor. 12 meters - such is its monstrous height.

Brontosaurus is Greek for "thunder lizard". When he walked on the ground, it seemed to tremble and rattle. Of course, nothing like this could be - he was called the "thunderer" as a joke. Four crooked columns - legs that served as supports for a massive torso. Yes, and they bent under the weight of a huge reptile. The brontosaurus spent days and nights in lakes and swamps. The length of the "thunder" monster is 20 meters, and the weight is probably 40 tons. The tail and neck of the brontosaurus are unreasonably long. At the end of the neck is a tiny head (relatively, of course). The weight of the brain is only 400 grams. He lived for a long time. It is believed that his advanced age is 200 years.

Diplodocus is similar in every way to the brontosaurus. But not so massive, as if it was made from lighter parts. It is smaller in weight, but the body is longer - up to 27 meters.

To match this giant, another "dragon" is a stegosaurus. The stegosaurus had a small head, lowered almost to the very ground, in which a miserable grain of the brain (the volume of a walnut and weighing 70 grams) was placed. It turns out that in addition to the underdeveloped brain, the stegosaurus also had a posterior, sacral brain, on which the “dragon” mainly relied. In the sacrum of the stegosaurus there was an extensive, twenty times more capacious than in the head, brain cavity. Real skull! But not in the head, but at the base of the tail. Along the back of the stegosaurus, from head to tail, stretched a double row of huge - up to a meter across - triangular bone shields. On the tail, the stegosaurus wore four sharp "swords" - long bone spikes. It was a terrible weapon! With a blow of the tail, the stegosaurus pierced its enemy through and through.

Tyrannosaurus Rex was the largest land predator the world has ever known. Its dimensions: height - 5 meters, length about 10 meters! Weight - 10 tons! The meter-long jaws of a tyrannosaurus rex were armed with hundreds of sharp and large, like knives, teeth. With them, a tyrannosaurus would easily rip open the stomach of an elephant, and a rhinoceros could carry away in its mouth. Tyrannosaurus ran on two hind legs. The Tyrannosaurus rex footprint is 76 centimeters long and almost 80 centimeters wide. With such legs, he took steps 4 meters long. His appearance terrified all the ancient inhabitants of the planet.

Triceratops means "three-horned" in Greek. He had large horns: two large ones above his eyes and one smaller one on his nose. And the nose, or rather, the end of the muzzle, was curved, like a parrot's beak. Not only did the horns protect the Triceratops - he also had a bone shield. It grew from the back of the head with a wide slab and covered the neck of this lizard from above and from the sides. The head of the Triceratops was also large - 2 meters long (together with the occipital shield). She occupied a third of the entire body of the lizard. Its length was 6 meters, and it weighed more than 2 tons.

I can't list all the dinosaurs. There are very, very many of them. I have listed the main ones. In the second chapter there will be detailed information about Diplodocus.

The word "dinosaur", which translates as "terrible lizard", appeared in 1842, when humanity was just trying to figure out what kind of bones these are found during excavations. It was then that the science of paleontology was born. The history of dinosaurs has been repeatedly rewritten since then, and at the moment there are a lot of versions about their origin, formation and extinction. Consider the most common and relatively official version.

The origin of the dinosaurs

Attempts to explain in simple terms the history of dinosaurs in a film or cartoon have been made repeatedly, but the events that preceded their appearance on our planet were practically not covered anywhere. As you know, the ancestors of these creatures are reptiles and birds. In particular, the crocodiles that exist at the moment have the most similar features to the ancient monsters. About 300 million years ago, when lizards already existed in the form we are used to, there was a serious climate change. The rainforests were largely destroyed, and the remnants of life huddled in the remaining small enclaves. This gave the first impetus to a huge variety of species, as each population developed independently of each other and tried to adapt to the conditions in which it existed. And they differed greatly in different regions. This is how the ancestors of dinosaurs appeared, called archosaurs by scientists.

First views

The history of dinosaurs, at least in the form in which they are represented by modern man, began about 200-245 million years ago. There is practically no exact data on the features and differences of these creatures compared to later samples, but something can be said for sure:

• They were bipedal (dinosaurs with four legs appeared a little later, although the opposite situation would have looked logical).
• The creatures were quite large, mostly their growth reached 2-4 meters.
• All of them were cold-blooded. Because of this, the need for food, despite its impressive size, was not too great.
• At the initial stages of development, most likely, there were no flying species of these pangolins.

In general, humanity knows very little about this period. Most of the information is guesswork and theories based on various findings and circumstantial evidence. So things could be completely different.

The Last Dinosaurs

The size of the "terrible lizards" gradually increased, and this continued until about the end of the Jurassic period (this was about 145 million years ago). In the middle of their life cycle, dinosaurs reached enormous sizes (up to 12 meters in height and 1 ton of net weight). During the "reign" of these monsters, no other species simply could not even conditionally claim dominance on the planet. Even later, in the Cretaceous period (65 million years ago), the creatures began to shrink. According to some reports, they developed the beginnings of feathers, and even warm-blooded species arose. Judging by the available information, the number of predators has significantly decreased, and, accordingly, the number of herbivores has increased. As a result, rare hunters have become truly real "killing machines". They moved quickly, could cope with most opponents, had no shortage of food and were rightly considered at that time the pinnacle of evolution.

mass extinction

The situation with the disappearance of this type of living creatures is well shown in the cartoon "The History of Dinosaurs". Of course, there the information is more focused on children, but active volcanoes, drought, lack of food and other similar problems could really cause the complete extinction of the prehistoric rulers of the planet. According to the official version, it all started with a huge meteorite that fell somewhere in the region of present-day Mexico. Upon impact, a large amount of dust rose into the atmosphere, sharply lowering the temperature on the surface (a similar situation is called "nuclear winter" and can become a reality if countries try to solve their problems with nuclear weapons). Along the way, the impact on the Earth activated dormant volcanoes. As a result, the simultaneous impact of several factors at once led to the fact that the dinosaurs simply did not have time to adapt and almost completely died out within a short period. Most likely, individual individuals remained, but they could not survive in a new world in which other dominant species appeared. Many people think that this particular dinosaur story is for children. Allegedly, in fact, everything was completely different. Unfortunately, in the future, scientists disagree in their opinions, and no one can yet give a clear theory of how everything really happened.

A lot of intriguing and mysterious things are shown in the documentaries "History of Dinosaurs" from popular science channels. True, they cannot be called documentary, since there are no documents, but everything there is reconstructed very competently. Nevertheless, every year more and more discoveries are made that radically change the idea of ​​dinosaurs as such. Let's see what interesting facts the modern history of dinosaurs reveals to us.

• Despite the fact that, as it was believed, dinosaurs were almost a mistake of nature (too small brain, large weight, severely limited diet, and so on), they managed to dominate the planet for more than 130 million years. The history of man as such, if we take our more or less reasonable ancestors, is at best 100,000 years old. So it is not a fact that in the distant future some new species will not be considered a mistake of a modern person.
• Tyrannosaurus, known in many films and literature as the most terrible and huge dinosaur, in fact, was not one. There were even more creatures, however, unlike this predator, they were still not hunters.
• The history of dinosaurs is still silent about why a tyrannosaurus needs its small hands at all. Judging by the structure of the skeleton, he simply could not reach them anywhere. Even more mysterious is the fact that these hands had very well developed muscles.
• Stegosaurus plates were used primarily not to protect against predators, but to remove heat. That is, they played the role of a natural radiator, in one case cooling the huge dinosaur, and in the other helping it to accumulate heat more efficiently, which is extremely important for any cold-blooded creature.

Results

The history of dinosaurs is gradually overgrown with new data, some of which contradict each other or do not fit into existing theories. For example, it is believed that dinosaurs and humans could not have existed in the same period of history. Although there are very interesting finds, stones, on which ancient people quite reliably depicted the interaction of a person and a “terrible lizard”. As it was in reality, no one can say yet. We are not able to fully understand even our own history, to say nothing of what happened long before the appearance of man as such.

Levshina Evelina

The research work "These amazing dinosaurs" was carried out by a 3rd grade student as part of the subject "The World Around". In this work, a study is conducted on the life and extinction of various types of dinosaurs.

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MUNICIPAL BUDGET GENERAL EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION

"SEVERAGE SCHOOL №20"

RESEARCH

SUBJECT:

"THE AMAZING DINOSAURS"

Performed:

3rd grade student

Levshina Evelina

Supervisor:

Primary school teacher

Kuzmina Natalia Nikolaevna

NOVOMOSKOVSK

2011-2012

Introduction.

Research problem and its relevance.

Many years have passed since the first dinosaur fossils were discovered.

What was the reason for the mass death of these giants, who dominated the Earth for about one hundred and forty million years? Have scientists solved this riddle? I decided to find an answer to this question.

This is how the topic of my research “These Amazing Dinosaurs” was born.

Purpose of the study:

Find out what caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Research objectives:

1. Find out when the planet Earth was formed.

2. Find out how we learned about dinosaurs.

3. Find out who gave the name to the dinosaurs.

4. Find out what dinosaurs looked like.

5. Find out what dinosaurs ate.

6. Find out if dinosaurs lived on the territory of the Amur Region.

7. Find the answer to the question why dinosaurs disappeared.

Research hypothesis:

It is possible that a sharp cooling or warming has come on Earth.

Research methods:

There are several ways to explore my topic: look at books about what I'm researching, ask other people, get to know TV movies on the topic of research.

Work plan:

1. Study of literature on the topic: "These amazing dinosaurs."

2. Statement of the problem.

3. Definition of the goal.

4. Definition of tasks.

5. Formation of a hypothesis.

6. Choice of research methods.

7. Registration of research work.

8. Preparing a presentation.

9. Presentation of the research work.

10. Discussion of the results of the work.

When was the planet Earth formed?

The earth was formed about four thousand million years ago from gas and dust. She was so hot that a ball of liquid stone arose. Over time, its surface cooled down, covered with a hard crust.

The hot Earth was covered with dense clouds of steam and gas. As the temperature dropped, it began to rain. It rained for hundreds of years and seas formed.

For the first billion years, there was no life on Earth. During this turbulent time, mountains appeared and disappeared. The sea then covered the land, then receded again. The first living organisms on Earth were so tiny that it would be difficult to distinguish them with the naked eye. They lived in the seas.

The first animals were fish. Over the years of evolution, some fish have developed lungs. They could now breathe without water and crawl on strong fins. They could live both on land and in water, they lived in warm swamps. The climate on Earth was getting warmer, and the swamps were drying up. And the amphibians lacked water to lay their eggs, so many died out. But there were animals called lizards. Monstrous dinosaurs roamed the earth.

To solve the second problem, I turned to encyclopedias about dinosaurs.

How did we learn about dinosaurs?

Everything that is known about dinosaurs today, people learned by examining the fossils of plants, animals, or their parts - in other words, fossils - that are found during excavations or by chance.

Some places where dinosaur remains have been found are called "burials" or "burial grounds" because a huge number of bones, including whole skeletons, have been found there.

Of course, the remains can be found quite by accident, but in most cases, an expedition of paleontologists (scientists who excavate extinct plants and animals) arrives at a certain place and starts looking for pieces of bones in the ground.

Who gave the name to the dinosaurs?

English scientist Richard Owen (1804-1892) found a large number of huge bones. The beasts whose skeletons he discovered seemed to him very scary, and he called them "terrible lizards", or dinosaurs. Since then they have been called that.

What did dinosaurs look like?

Some dinosaurs were huge, the size of an entire tennis court, while others were as small as a chicken. Some had smooth skin, while others were covered with scales, or even a horny shell that protected the body. In addition, some lizards had horns or spikes. We know about six hundred varieties of dinosaurs.

What did dinosaurs eat?

Most dinosaurs ate grass. Scientists call them herbivores. In addition to these peaceful grass-eaters, there were carnivorous dinosaurs that ate meat. They are called carnivores.

Most of the day the dinosaurs were busy getting food. In particular, herbivores often cared about this, because vegetation contains significantly less nutrients than meat.

Carnivorous dinosaurs preyed on herbivorous dinosaurs, killing them with their sharp teeth and claws. If herbivorous dinosaurs could not escape or did not have a protective shell, they had no chance of salvation.

I was interested in one of the types of herbivorous dinosaurs - STEGOSAUR. I want to tell you more about him.

STEGOSAUR.

Stegosaurus - a large and rather strange-looking herbivorous dinosaur - was discovered in North America. A striking double row of plates along the ridge, turning into a spiny tail, for a long time puzzled paleontologists. They could not understand what function these plates performed.

The body length of the stegosaurus reached almost 9 meters, its legs were thick and short. Stegosaurus got its name, meaning "roofing lizard", from the first impression of paleontologists, who believed that the plates on its back lay flat, like tiles on a roof. However, today it has been found out that these plates actually stood upright and could change their position.

These plates formed a double row along the back of the stegosaurus, and they were not strictly one against the other. The plates probably prevented the body temperature from getting too high or too low. So, on a cold morning, a stegosaurus could expose its plates to the sun's rays so that they accumulate heat. At noon, the stegosaurus could turn these plates sideways so that the breeze cooled them a little, lowering its body temperature.

In comparison with the size of the body, the head of the Stegosaurus was truly tiny. Its skull was as large as that of a large modern dog. Instead of lips, the stegosaurus had a toothless horny beak, with which this herbivorous lizard plucked and bit off leaves.

The size of the brain of this multi-ton (6-8 tons) lizard did not exceed a walnut.

Stegosaurus walked on all fours. Perhaps they could stand on their hind legs in order to pluck leaves from trees. The thick short legs of the stegosaurs were clearly not intended for fast running, but in order to withstand the enormous weight of the massive body of the lizard.

If a hungry predator approached a stegosaurus, the unfortunate herbivorous lizard could hardly escape from it.

Instead, he apparently tried to fight for his life, using his long tail as a weapon. Each of the bone spikes on the tail was up to one meter long, with which the Stegosaurus could seriously injure the enemy.

The most terrible enemies of stegosaurs were such carnivorous dinosaurs as giant lizards - allosaurs and ceratosaurs.

Last summer, my family and I were on vacation in the city of Vladivostok. There I visited an exhibition of dinosaurs and took some interesting photos, which I want to present to your attention.

I found out that there are less than a dozen places in Russia where dinosaur bones are found. I have a new question:

Did dinosaurs live in the Amur region?

I found information that almost 65 million years ago, huge pangolins lived on the territory of the Amur Region.

Today their remains are found by paleontologists.

There are two such places in the Amur region, and quite large ones. One of the dinosaur cemeteries is located in Blagoveshchensk, the other in the Arkharinsky district. Reptile bones were first found in Blagoveshchensk in 1948. The remains were accidentally discovered by schoolboy Ivan Bastrykin and took the finds to the local history museum. Museum specialists turned to the capital. At first they thought that these remains had once been brought here by the course of the Amur River. But later it turned out that there is a whole cemetery of ancient reptiles here. Almost 10 years ago, a whole dinosaur skeleton was found in the Arkharinsky district. It took three years to completely excavate the giant. Scientists named the skeleton of Olorotitan Vanyusha. Now he is at the Institute of Geology.

In total, four species of herbivorous reptiles were described based on materials found in the Amur Region, but paleontologists are sure that predators were also found in the Amur region, but it is difficult to look for evidence. There is enough space in the Amur Region to search for new types of dinosaurs.

To solve the last task, I looked through several different encyclopedias about dinosaurs and found the answer to the question:

Why did the dinosaurs disappear?

Today, scientists know that dinosaurs disappeared, although not instantly, but very quickly - in just a few million years.

There are several hypotheses that explain the different reasons for the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. One of them claims that the Earth collided with an asteroid - a giant boulder rushing through space. As a result of the collision, dense clouds of dust obscured the Sun for a long time. Plants stopped growing, it became very cold on Earth, so the dinosaurs died out from hunger and cold.

There is a different opinion. It is believed that the reason for the extinction of the dinosaurs could be the rise in the level of the oceans, which caused strong river floods. Perhaps a supernova exploded near the solar system, unleashing a shower of deadly rays on Earth.

Conclusion.

Obviously, the dinosaurs died out as a result of some kind of grandiose catastrophe that swept the entire globe.

Conclusion.

When I started my research on These Amazing Dinosaurs, I had to go through a lot of books and magazines about dinosaurs. Most of all I was interested in the theme of the Amur dinosaurs. I realized that hundreds more questions can be answered on this topic. Therefore, I will continue this work.

Literature

1. I. Yakovleva, "Trace of the dinosaur", Moscow "ROSMEN", 1993.

2. D. Eliott and K. King, "Children's Encyclopedia", CJSC "ROSMEN",

2005.

3. M. Lunkenbein, My first encyclopedia "Dinosaurs", Moscow

ONIX, 2005.

4. C. Clarke, These Amazing Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric

Animals”, Makhaon Publishing House, 1998.

5. M. Avdonina, "Dinosaurs". Complete Encyclopedia, Moscow: Eksmo, 2007.

6. Newspaper "Echo Surprise" No. 19, 2008.

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How do we know about the existence of dinosaurs if no one has ever seen them? Thanks to the finds of many fossil skeletons.

From them you can understand how the dinosaurs were arranged and how these ancient reptiles lived.

Footprints in the rocks

By studying fossil remains in rocks, scientists have discovered many interesting things. For example, they found that the first living things appeared in the sea over 3 billion years ago.

Restoring the skeleton is the work of a paleontologist

Scientists who study prehistoric animals are called paleontologists. It is they who are looking for fossilized bones on all continents. The bones, carefully cleaned of layers, are cataloged and then sent to laboratories, where skeletons are recreated from them. If there are not enough individual parts, they are replaced with copies made of plaster or plastic.

Here is a restored Triceratops skeleton in a paleontological museum. Now anyone can see how big and strong he was. By the teeth we can understand what he ate, and by the size of the bones we can draw conclusions about his weight, mode of movement, and even about his lack of dexterity.