Guide Note

Dinosaurs include all animals belonging to the superorder Dinosauria, including several orders of extinct land-dwelling reptiles and present-day birds.¹

Fast Facts

1. Dominant land life form: 185 million years²
2. Number of extinct genera known: 500+³
3. Number of avian genera: 1,800+⁴
4. Largest known dinosaur: Sauroposeidon⁵
5. Smallest known extinct dinosaur: Parvicursor⁶
6. Non-avian dinosaurs went extinct 65,000,000 years ago⁷

Dinosaurs are classified in two broad groups based on the orientation of their pelvic bone structure.

1. The Saurischian pelvic bone structure features a vertically oriented pubic bone. Examples of Saurischian dinosaurs include Diplodocus, Apatosaurus, Sauroposeidon, all carnivorous dinosaurs including Tyrannosaurus and all birds.⁸
2. The Ornithischian pelvic structure is distinguished by a more lateral pubic bone. Ornithischian dinosaurs discovered to date are all herbivorous. Examples of Ornithischian dinosaurs include Iguanodon, Parasaurolophus and Triceratops.⁹

Richard Owen first applied the classification Dinosauria to three fossil specimen in 1842. The mystery and allure of the dinosaurs has been part of mass media ever since.

Dinosaurs have appeared in movies and cartoons since the earliest days of motion pictures. D.W. Griffith's The Primitive Man featured a forty-foot long mechanized dinosaur mechanical model.¹⁰ The animated Gertie the Dinosaur was the first appearance of a dinosaur in a cartoon. The 12-minute short is credited with legitimizing animation as an art form.¹¹

Fiction featuring dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures first received popular attention with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel The Lost World.¹² Hundreds of novels and short stories have followed, most notably Ray Bradbury's A Sound of Thunder, James Gurney's Dinotopia series, Harry Harrison's West of Eden series and Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park books.

Dinosaur toys, model kits, games, and all manner of other merchandise also exist.