Gone, But Not Forgotten Trivia Quiz

Answer: The bone of a giant

The concept of dinosaurs was not common in the 17th century. Many scientists of the era believed that fossils were just unusually-shaped rocks that happened to look like body parts. At first, Robert Plot considered the idea of the femur belonging to an elephant brought to England during Roman rule, but he decided that the bone was too big for an elephant.

Instead, he concluded that it had come from a giant. Although the original fossil has been lost, detailed drawings of the thighbone show that it belonged to a Megalosaurus.

Answer: Pterodactylus

Pterosaurs were not dinosaurs, though they did have a common ancestor. Pterosaurs like the pterodactylus (commonly known as 'pterodactyls') had wings made of skin and muscle that stretched from an elongated fourth finger all the way back to their hind limbs.

The actual discoverer of the first pterosaur fossil is sadly lost to history, but Italian naturalist Cosimo Collini described it. He believed that the fourth finger was used like a paddle in water. French naturalist Georges Cuvier had a different idea.

He realised that the finger bones were part of a wing, similar to bat wings.

Answer: Plesiosaurus

In 1824, Mary Anning was the first to find an intact Plesiosaurus skeleton. Plesiosaurs were marine reptiles that lived in the Late Triassic Period and Late Cretaceous Period. They had long necks and flat bodies. To swim, they would flap their fins in the water, much like sea lions of today.

Mary Anning was not a trained scientist. She came from a poor family and did not receive much in the way of education. When she was a child, her family collected shells and fossils (though at the time, people didn't know what they were) to earn money. Anning began to find larger, more complete fossils and scientists started to show interest in the things she uncovered. She could read and write, so she taught herself geology and anatomy to help with her work.

Answer: Teeth

The Iguanodon got its name from its similarity to iguanas of today. Gideon Mantell identified a resemblance between the fossils he had discovered and an iguana's teeth. The Iguanodon teeth helped Mantell and other scientists to realise that dinosaurs were reptiles.

Some Iguanodon fossils have been found in groups, suggesting that they lived in herds. They were herbivorous and ate plants that grew near rivers and streams, like ferns and horsetails.

Answer: Birds

The first Archaeopteryx fossil was found in 1861 in Bavaria, Germany. It was considered to be the oldest bird fossil because the impressions of feathers were preserved in the mud around it. Since the end of the 20th century, however, their status as the oldest species of bird has been questioned.

More recent evidence, such as the discovery of the Xiaotingia zhengi, shows that some dinosaurs did have feathers. Some palaeontologists believe that species like the Archaeopteryx (that have feathers, wings, and other bird-like features) are a link in the transition between dinosaurs and modern birds.

Answer: Barnum Brown

Barnum Brown (allegedly named after circus showman P.T. Barnum) discovered the Tyrannosaurus rex fossil on an expedition in 1902. It was uncovered at the Hell Creek Formation in Montana. Prior to 1980, palaeontologists only had four incomplete T. rex skeletons to work from. Since then, more partial skeletons have been discovered.

In 1990, a 90% complete fossil was discovered, and at the beginning of the 21st century, the unthinkable happened. A T. rex thighbone was discovered with bone cells and blood vessels still intact inside it.

Answer: He presented the idea that some dinosaurs were warm-blooded.

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, people had thought the dinosaurs were cold-blooded and slow like the reptiles of today. John Ostrom changed that perception. He discovered new Deinonychus fossils that showed that the dinosaur was an active predator.

The Deinonychus could stab and slash with its claw, and strings of muscle present on the tail suggested that it could run and jump. The genus Ostromia was named after him in 2017.

Answer: China

Although other feathered species had been found (such as the Archaeopteryx) the Sinosauropteryx was the first feathered theropod that was not directly related to modern birds. This revelation shook the scientific community. It opened the possibility that many dinosaurs were not covered in scales, as had been thought for over a century, but actually had feathers.

The Sinosauropteryx demonstrated that dinosaurs evolved to have bird-like features well before the Archaeopteryx, which was previously considered to be the first known bird.

Answer: Melanosomes, which are sacs of pigments known as melanins

Melanosomes are present in animal cells and give tissue its colour. As the fossils of feathered dinosaurs were uncovered in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, Vinther decided to look at the microscopic structures within the feather remains. Although the pigment has faded over time, the shape of the melanosomes indicates the colour an animal might have been. For example, spheres indicate a red or brown pigment and rod-shaped melanosomes would have probably been black or grey. The arrangement of melanosomes could even show which feathers were iridescent.

Although this system gives insight to the colour a dinosaur might have been, it is not a perfect indicator. Some animals, such as flamingos, get their colour from the food they eat. Also, colour pigments degrade after death and many animals lose some of their colour or brightness when they die.

Answer: Amber

In 2016, Lida Xing found a piece of amber with a preserved dinosaur tail trapped inside it. The fossil was 99 million years old, but still contained feathers, bones, and soft tissue. In the same year, Xing found a set of dinosaur wings preserved in amber, too.

The two finds are from different species: the feathers of the tail suggest that the dinosaur it came from could not fly; the feathers on the wings are structured differently, indicating that the animal probably could fly.