Cold-blooded lizards have
to warm up in sunlight;
they cannot control their
temperature.
Are dinosaurs lizards?
Age of the dinosaurs
What is a dinosaur?
Were dinosaurs warm-blooded?
It’s possible that meat-eating dinosaurs
were warm-blooded (like we are), while
plant-eating sauropods were cold-blooded.
Warm-blooded animals use food as fuel
to stay warm. Sauropods were too large
to have eaten enough plants to do this.
Two legs or four?
Meat-eater or plant-
eater? What made a
dinosaur? They all
had four limbs, though
many walked on two.
There were a number
of other features they
had in common.
Scaly skin
Impressions of dinosaur
skin are rare, but
palaeontologists (scientists
who study fossils) have
found enough to know that
dinosaurs had scaly skin,
rather like crocodiles today.
Long tails
Scientists believe dinosaurs held
their tails above the ground as
there is no evidence of drag marks
when trackways have
been found.
All dinosaurs lived
on land. They could
not fly or swim.
Giganotosaurus
Meat-eating
dinosaurs were
known as
theropods.
184
