Flash
22/11/21
Walking with Dinosaurs
Port Lympne Safari Park in Kent not only has some amazing real life animals to discover, it also has an incredible Dinosaur Forest where you can walk around amongst the dinosaurs! You can find out more about it on their website.
There were lots of dinosaurs in the dinosaur forest, lots I recognised and a few I didn’t. It was really fun to learn about some dinosaurs I didn’t know very much about.
Can you name all the dinosaurs in the photos below? Hover your mouse over them once you’ve guessed to see if you were right! Do you know any interesting facts about these dinosaurs?
Remember, you can find out lots more about dinosaurs in our dinosaur section in topics.
Allosaurus
A Baby Diplodocus being chased
Pterodactyl
Walking with Dinosaurs and Learning New Facts
Among all the dinosaurs I saw, these are the three dinosaurs I really enjoyed learning about the most. I’ve never even heard of Europasaurus before! Here’s what I found out about them…
Europasaurus
Europasaurus was a sauropod that lived during the late Jurassic Period but it was so much smaller than most of the gigantic sauropods that were roaming the Earth back then.
Europasaurus would have grown to about six metres long, including their neck and tail. It is thought it was so small as it lived on islands with limited space and food (gigantic sauropods had to eat a lot of food to survive!)
Its name means Lizard from Europe, as fossils of the dinosaur were found in Germany. Just like the other sauropods it was a herbivore, lived in herds and walked on all fours.
Deinonychus
Deinonychus was a theropod dinosaur that lived during the Cretaceous Period. Its name means ‘terrible claw’ because it had a massive claw on its feet which it used to kill its prey.
Deinonychus was quite a small raptor, it would have stood about two metres tall. Like all theropod dinosaurs it walked on its longer back legs. Its feathered arms and long tail helped to keep it balanced as it ran or attacked other dinosaurs.
When Deinonychus attacked its prey, it would hold them with its arms and then kick it with his feet. The long curved claw on its foot, which would have been about 13cm long, would then kill the dinosaur it was attacking really easily.
Styracosaurus
Styracosaurus was a dinosaur that lived in the late Cretaceous Period. It looked and behaved very much like Triceratops but it had spikes along the top of its protective frill. Its name means Spiked Lizard.
The horn Styracosaurus had would have mainly been used as defence and to put off predators. Its spike covered frill would have also been very off putting to dinosaurs wanting to eat them! The spikes were also meant to help attract females too.
Styracosaurus were just over five metres long and about two metres tall. With all their spikes they did look a bit scary but were gentle herbivores that lived in herds for protection.
All photos and illustrations in this blog post are Whizzbots and Shutterstock Images.