Dinosaurs – the extinct animal species

Dinosaurs lived millions of years ago. It is estimated that they have been on Earth for 165 million years. They disappeared about 66 million years ago.

The dinosaurs were around during the Mesozoic era or the “age of the dinosaurs”.

An interesting fact is that the stegosaurus has already disappeared by the time the tyrannosaurus existed. In fact, it disappeared about 80 million years ago!

There are more than 700 species of dinosaurs. Some were big, some were small. They circled the earth and flew in the sky. Some were carnivores and others herbivores.

Dinosaur fossils have been found on all continents of the Earth, including Antarctica! People looking for dinosaur fossils are called palaeontologists.

The word dinosaur was coined by an English palaeontologist named Richard Owen. “Dino” comes from the Greek word “deinos”, which means terrible. “Saurus” comes from the Greek word “sauros”, which means lizard. Richard Owen coined the name in 1842 after seeing dinosaur fossils.

One of the largest dinosaurs was the Argentinosaurus. The dinosaurs were huge and varied in size. There were very tall, very small and very heavy! The Argentinosaurus is believed to have weighed up to 100 tons, which is the same as 15 elephants. It was about 8 meters high and 37 meters long.

Tyrannosaurus Rex is believed to have been one of the most ferocious dinosaurs in existence. Tyrannosaurus had the strongest jaws on Earth! The dinosaur was named “King of the Tyrant Lizards” and was a medium-sized school bus.

Although dinosaurs have become extinct, there are still animals today that come from the dinosaur family. These are lizards, turtles, snakes and crocodiles.

One of the endangered species is the Amur tiger.

Endangered species in Bulgaria / Serbia

They are listed in the so-called Red Book of Bulgaria / Serbia.

Birds – black stork, wasp, bald eagle, woodpecker, woodpecker, black woodpecker, orc falcon, great hawk.

Mammals – goldfinch, colourful ferret, brown bear, wild cat;

Amphibians and reptiles – concave dragon, mouse dragon, leopard dragon, spiny tortoise;

Fish – thorns, Danube lamprey, pikeperch.

The causes of the extinction of some animal and plant species can be divided into two groups: natural or due to human activity.

Natural are all natural disasters over which we have no control such as earthquakes, fires, floods, tsunamis, tornadoes and others. Those related to human activity are: deforestation, deprivation of natural fertile lands for growing crops, construction of multi-lane highways, oil spills in the oceans and seas, urbanization (urban overcrowding), huge amounts of waste that we failed to we recycle.