little tidbits

After a cold, but nice weekend, we're back to the grind. Hubby wasn't really able to catch a break due to the end of the semester rapidly approaching (two and a half weeks to go, Yay!), but we were able to spend a relaxing Saturday and Sunday. When we did our grocery run late Saturday afternoon, we detoured into a book store (a VERY dangerous place for our family). After convincing Boy2 that he REALLY didn't need another Thomas the Tank Engine toy, we got a googly-eyed fish book for Boy2, a Get Fuzzy comic book for Hubby and I (we just need mindless reading sometimes), and the Boy got a new Dinosaur book (we were unsuccessful in convincing him he didn't need another dino book).

This Dinosaur book isn't just a fun, coloured book on your average dinos. No, this has how fossils are made, family life, what they ate, how they hunted, so many different names, which period they lived in, you name it, they have a page for it. So, here is what I have learned in the last two days about dinosaurs that, if I ever knew them, I'd forgotten.

the stegosarus looks remarkably like the huayangosarus, but the latter has fewer plates and more spikes.

one of the smallest fossils ever found was of the Mussaurs which was only eight inches long.

most dinosaurs ignored their young after the initial hatching (sometimes it sounds so tempting!)

the iguanadon was the first dinosaur fossils ever found

the stegoceras' (not to be cofused with the stegosaurus) skull could be as think as 3 inches

the brachiosaurus had to eat virtually all day long to obtain enough to survive

the velociraptor could not bend its tail

micropachycephalosaurus has the longest name of any dinosaur

the albertosaurus had extemely strong muscles to clamp the jaw shut, but weaker muscles to open them

the archaeoptyeryx is the link that some scientists use to group birds and dinosaurs together

both the styracosaurus and the chasmosaurus look alot like the tricertops

alot of the meat eaters fed on carrion, older, younger, or weaker animals intead of hitting the strongest ones (okay, I could have guessed that one)

the megalosaurus was the most powerful hunter in Erope in the late Jurassic period

I realize that by sharing thes little tidbits of information I am enriching the lives of so many. I just wish my wonderfully curious little boy wasn't so intent on saying "read book me" while holding up a fact book instead of a story book. He is such his father's child!