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Dinosaurs
are animals that evolved into many sizes and shapes. Dinosaurs
were and are quite diverse, and often one person will think of
an animal like a long-necked sauropod, while another person will
think of a large, fierce meat-eater like Tyrannosaurus rex. It
should be clear then that the term "dinosaurs", or the scientific
version "Dinosauria", is describing a diverse group of animals
with widely different modes of living. The term was invented by
Sir Richard Owen in 1842 to describe these "fearfully great reptiles",
specifically Megalosaurus, Iguanodon, and Hylaeosaurus, the only
three dinosaurs known at the time. The creatures that we normally
think of as dinosaurs lived from late in the Triassic period (about
225 million years ago) until the end of the Mesozoic era (about
65 million years ago); but actually they live on today as the
birds.
Different
dinosaurs lived at different times. Despite the portrayals in
movies like Fantasia and Jurassic Park, no Stegosaurus ever saw
a Tyrannosaurus, because Tyrannosaurus wasn't alive for another
80 or so million years. Ditto for Apatosaurus (a.k.a. "Brontosaurus").
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