For those of you who may not have been aware, I was fortunate enough to recently publish a dinosaur book for kids, complete with build-it-yourself pop-out dinosaurs. I’ve recently published an article in The Guardian about it, which features much of the great artwork by Vladimir Nikolov. It’s all about some of the perhaps less well-known dinosaur facts that feature in the book, so enjoy!
Top 10 dinosaur facts!
By Jon Tennant
Jon began university life as a geologist, followed by a treacherous leap into the life sciences. He spent several years at Imperial College London, investigating the extinction and biodiversity patterns of Mesozoic tetrapods – anything with four legs or flippers – to discover whether or not there is evidence for a ‘hidden’ mass extinction 145 million years ago. Alongside this, Jon researched the origins and evolution of ‘dwarf’ crocodiles called atoposaurids. Prior to this, there was a brief interlude were Jon was immersed in the world of science policy and communication, which greatly shaped his views on the broader role that science can play, and in particular, the current ‘open’ debate. Jon tragically passed away in 2020.
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Mike Taylor
Congratulations on the book and the article! On howler slipped through, though:
“Many sauropods ate stones to help them grind up the tough plant food in their stomachs. These stones, called gastroliths, are often found with dinosaur skeletons.”
Oliver Wings pretty comprehensively refuted this speculation back in 2006: Wings, Oliver and P. Martin Sander. 2007. No gastric mill in sauropod dinosaurs: new evidence from analysis of gastrolith mass and function in ostriches. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 274: 635-640. doi:10.1098/rspb.2006.3763.
Jon Tennant
Oh crap. Is this the latest on it? I thought it was a dead cert that pretty much all herbivorous dinosaurs used them to some degree..
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