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What did dinosaurs eat? |
by Mya Kagan (whyzz writer) >> more about the author
Dining Dinos!
Because dinosaurs have been extinct for about 65 million years, it’s difficult for scientists and paleontologists to know exactly what dinosaurs ate. However, they’re often able to gather clues from characteristics of a dinosaur’s fossils (like the size of the teeth or the sharpness of claws) or occasionally (but very rarely) from preserved contents of a dinosaur’s last meal or even a little bit of dino poop!
In terms of their diet, most dinosaurs are classified as either “meat eaters” (carnivores) or “plant eaters” (herbivores). Some examples of well-known meat eaters include Tyrannosaurs Rex and Velociraptor, while examples of plant eaters include Stegosaurus and Triceratops.
For meat eaters, food meant mostly eating other dinos or prehistoric animals. It’s possible that some of the meat eaters hunted, while other just scavenged. Plant eaters, on the other hand, stuck to mostly things more like leaves and seeds. – Scientists also believe that some dinosaurs probably ate both plants and meat, just like we do!!
Dining Dinos!
How many different kinds of dinosaurs do you know about? What are some of their names, and do you know whether they ate meat or plants??
Here are some good examples!
Plant-eating dinos included Brachiosaurus, Triceratops, and Supersaurus!
Some meat-eaters included Allosaurus, Velociraptor, Megalosaurus, and (of course!) the T-rex!!
