Do You Know More About Dinosaurs Than Ross Geller?
- by Claire Ross
- – on
- in The Geek Corner
Have you ever watched a Ross-heavy episode of Friends and thought, "Gee, I sure know a heck of a lot more about dinosaurs than this bumbling Geller guy"? If that sounds familiar, then now is your chance to finally prove to yourself (and your own friends!) that you do indeed know more about the prehistoric reptiles than the fictional paleontologist-come-serial dater. His jokes were funny, but let's be real, the writers of Friends only knew which dinosaurs sounded cool, not which jokes made for the most accurate factoids.
Do you know your Triassic from your Jurassic and your Triceratops from your Tyrannosaurus? Did you watch the first Jurassic Park with a raised eyebrow and a tut-tut at the inaccuracies? Did you keep a little notebook full of complaints while watching Land Before Time (though, of course, you watched all 14 instalments anyway and enjoyed them immensely.)?
Some people will call you a nerd, some people will call you a complainer, some might even reject your correct information in favor of the sanitized pop-science they see on television. Everyone likes a good T-Rex villain, leaving us in the know forever whispering from the darkness: "Actually... they were scavengers..."
Alas. We feel your pain. We've created this Grade A quiz to help you prove those bumbling bananas wrong once and for all. Ready, set, dinosaur!
What is the study of prehistoric life called?
For the first question, we'll go easy on you. Did you pay attention in grade school, high school or that one mandatory university-level science course? If you didn't, try using some of that Latin you learned as a toddler, or flash back on those science trivia cards you saw at the museum when you were ten! If you didn't sleep through the first 22 years of education that you (hopefully) received, then this one should be a breeze. Do you know the answer?
What was the first dinosaur ever discovered called?
Remember what I said earlier about dinosaur bones being considered Dragon bones in China for millennia before dinosaurs were properly recognized? Well, do you know which dinosaur first changed all that? This guy was described in 1824, by William Buckland. Buckland was a British fossil hunter and clergyman who discovered the fossils in 1819, and was the first human to ever scientifically describe dinosaurs as a separate taxonomic group. The word dinosaur hadn't even been invented yet! I prefer the dragon theory myself, but alas. I am but a lowly quiz master.
Where have dinosaur fossils been found on Earth?
Fossils are the preserved remains, impression, or traces of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, hair, petrified wood, oil, coal, and DNA remnants. We can use fossils to learn about the billions of years of history our Earth has survived, and what each era would have looked like. Any time you crack open a text book about dinosaurs, you're studying fossil records. The gasoline that fuels your car is also made up of carbon-heavy fossils! Leave em in the ground, if you ask me.
Which dinosaur is this?
Woosh! These classic dinosaurs are my personal favorite! Who doesn't like the idea of a gigantic flying lizard? You'd have to be nuts (and a bit blind to popular culture) to not understand the appeal of - basically - a real-life dragon. These dinos were carnivores and probably preyed upon fish and other small animals.They had wings formed by a skin and muscle membrane stretching from its elongated fourth finger to its hind limbs. It was supported internally by cartelidge.
What does the word Dinosaur mean?
The word Dinosaur was formally coined in 1842 by the scientist Sir Richard Owen, who used it to refer to the "distinct tribe or sub-order of Saurian Reptiles" that were then being recognized in England and around the world. The term is derived from Ancient Greek, and was meant to give early scholars an idea of what these creatures were like when they were alive. Have you brushed up on your Ancient Greek lately? Here's a good test of how much you remember!
What dinosaur themed book was turned into a blockbuster movie in 1993?
I wish I'd read more dinosaur adventure books as a kid. There's probably a lot of them out there, and they're probably mostly inaccurate, but what's better than a high-octane adventure to the world of the past? Big ferns, big animals, warm weather, clear skies (until the end)... I hope Elon Musk figures out time travel after he's squared away the space stuff, because I sure have a lot of questions! Do you know what dinosaur themed book was turned into a blockbuster movie in 1993?
The first dinosaur fossil was discovered when?
Have you ever seen a dinosaur fossil in a museum and wondered what the world could have looked like covered in those majestic and terrifying creatures? Of course, it wouldn't have been too similar to Jurassic Park, but the movie does give us a sense of the dense jungle and danger. Can you imagine what it would have been like to be one of those early explorers, dusting off the bones of such a mythological being? What a find! Do you remember when they were first uncovered?
What dinosaur am I?
I am one of the largest flesh-eating land animals ever. I have massive legs and tiny arms, and could reach a height of 7 meters/23 feet and weight over 7000 kg! I am the king and popular among dinosaur lore and have bled into our popular culture as a 'classic' dinosaur. If you've been paying attention and haven't been living under a rock your whole life, you definitely know who I am! If you're still stumped, try picking apart the names of the dinosaurs below...
Are those real dinosaur bones used in museum exhibits?
How old were you when you first laid eyes on a dinosaur skeleton, probably at the local museum with your parents or on a school field trip? Did it blow your mind and light up your imagination? Sometimes curators will place dinosaurs in an exhibit that mimics their environment from millions of years ago, and we're transported back with our imaginations in full force. Museum curators are magicians, aren't they? So, here's a tricky question. Are those real dinosaur bones used in museum exhibits?
How high could a Brachiosaurus reach in the modern world?
These giraffe-like dinosaurs used their long-long necks to reach up high to eat leaves off tall trees. These gigantic herbivores could see for miles around, and must have been terrifying to witness! I'd like to think that they moved very slowly and were gentle giants of the Jurassic world, but that may not have been the case. Either way, I'm sure they'd get hearts pounding if they were ever spotted in the modern world. How high could these creatures reach if they existed today?
The Flintstones' pet dinosaur was called?
Did you grow up with The Flintstones? I never really watched the cartoon as a child, but my family did love the live-action version with John Goodman, Rosie O'Donnell and Kyle MacLachlan. What an amazing cast! I'm a big Lynchian and Portlandia fan, so you can never go with MacLachlan especially. How much of the show do you remember beyond "Flintstones. Meet the Flintstones. They're the modern stone age family. From the town of Bedrock, They're a page right out of history. Let's ride with the family down the street. Through the courtesy of Fred's two feet!"
The earth once consisted of one super continent called...
This supercontinent incorporated almost all the landmasses on Earth, here depicted with artificial divisions to show just where our modern landmasses would have been located. Isn't that cool? The continent was surrounded by a global ocean called Panthalassa, and it was fully assembled some 299 million years ago. The supercontinent began to break apart about 200 million years ago, during the Early Jurassic period, eventually forming the modern continents and the Atlantic and Indian oceans. The discovery of this supercontinent played a big role in proving the theory of continental drift (also very cool)!
What animal group evolved from dinosaurs?
Any true dinosaur-lover will know the answer to this question, though it isn't necessarily an obvious leap. You can find hints in the arms and feet of these modern creatures, and once you see the resemblance, you'll never unsee it! We're virtually surrounded by these urban dinosaurs! It just goes to show the persistence and power of life on this planet. Even a meteorite and a black sun couldn't keep these kings of the Jurassic down for the count. Do you know which animal group I'm talking about?
An adult Stegosaurus had a brain the size of a...?
Poor Stegosaurus! We all know brain relative to body size indicates some measure of intelligence, and it goes without saying that the reptiles of today are not the sharpest tools in the shed. So what about this spiney species? Were they the smartest dinos on the block, or the bumbling bafoons or the Triassic era? We don't want to judge these fellas too harshly, after all you probably don't need to do any high octane science or math as a prehistoric lizard.
Most dinosaurs were...
Given the limitations of modern science, all we can do is guess at dinosaur's specific diets. But we have some good tools to help us out: based on the type of teeth the dinosaur had (could it eat soft or tough plant material?), and where it lived (climate, habitat, etc), and which plants were around during that particular time period (also discovered with fossil evidence), scientists are able to formulate a pretty good guess! Do you know what kind of diet most dinosaurs had?
Which Jurassic Park villain was later discovered to be the size of a chicken with feathers?
At last! A nitpicky question! There are a bunch of errors in Jurassic Park, like this one: the Brachiosaurus leaning up to eat a leaf off of a very tall tree, then jumping up onto its hind legs to get a bit further, then sneezing. Amazing visual effects! But of course, no dinosaur that size would have been able to lean up onto its hind legs, the weight of its neck alone would be too much. But the mistake this question is based on is hardly their fault, as it was discovered after the film came out.
What material did the scientists use in Jurassic Park to collect dino DNA?
In Jurassic Park, scientists managed to revive dinosaurs by collecting their DNA from what material? Sadly, sticking a needle into a 66-million-year-old dead insect will not give you liquid dinosaur blood. Though this material does preserve specimens in exquisite detail, time takes its toll, and most of the tissue will decay. Some DNA has been successfully extracted from specimens like this, but it is the genetic material of the insect itself, not the animal blood it fed on. Do you remember this detail?
What dinosaur features on the logo of the Toronto NBA basketball team?
When this team was first starting out, the owners wanted to revive the old Huskies nickname, but team management realized it would be too similar to the Minnesota Timberwolves. As a result, a Canada-wide contest was held to help name the team and develop their colours and logo. Over 2,000 entries were narrowed down to eleven prospects: Beavers, Bobcats, Dragons, Grizzlies, Hogs, Scorpions, Tarantulas, Terriers, Towers, and two dinosaur choices! Even if you're not a basketball fan, you should still know which dinos made the coolest logo beasts.
What dinosaur am I?
I have a huge head and three horns. I can grow to over 6000 kg and live as a herbivore. I bear a large bony frill and three horns on my large four-legged body, and possess similarities with the modern rhinoceros. I am one of the most recognizable of all the dinos and the best known of my subgroup. I shared the landscape with and was probably preyed upon by Tyrannosaurus.
What did Stegosaurus use its spiky back plates for?
The iconic Stegosaurus was a large, heavily built, herbivorous quadruped with a rounded back, short fore limbs, long hind limbs, and a tail held high in the air. What a prideful sounding creature! Due to their distinctive combination of broad, upright plates and tail tipped with spikes, Stegosaurus is one of the most recognizable kinds of dinosaur. And certainly the coolest, if I do say so myself. The function of this array of plates and spikes has been the subject of much speculation among scientists. Do you know the right answer?
Where was the Velociraptor first found?
During an expedition in August 1923, Peter Kaisen recovered the first Velociraptor fossil known to science: a crushed but complete skull, and one toe claw. In 1924, the find was designated as specimens of his new genus, Velociraptor. This name is derived from the Latin words velox ('swift') and raptor ('robber' or 'plunderer'). Dinosaur enthusiasts always give their finds the best names, don't they? So, where did this epic excavation take place, that resulted in the first Velociraptor fossil being recovered?
Put these periods in the right order!
Have you ever heard of the Geological time scale? There's a handy way of looking at Earth time described by many but popularized by Neil deGrasse Tyson: if you put all of Earth's geological history on a 1 year calendar (starting January 1st), then humans have only been around in the last hour of the last day of the year, December 31st! Does that put things in perspective? The options below describe time scales much larger than our own. I bet those dinosaurs thought they were all that, just like us!
How long is the biggest dinosaur recorded, the Argentinosaurus?
Everyone wants to know about the toughest, meanest, scariest dinosaur: the T-Rex. But the T-Rex is kind of lame in my opinion. Look at those silly arms, those beady little eyes, that unwieldy tail! The Argentinosaurus is way cooler in my eyes. It's got a long neck, great legs, and it's a vegetarian only. How much more hip can you get? Although I would never want to meet one; I'll have to simply admire from afar. Do you know how long this massive dino got?
The super-heavy Brachiosaurus weighed the same as...
These weirdo Brachiosaurus had disproportionately long necks, small skulls, and a large overall size, all of which are typical for sauropods. However, the proportions of Brachiosaurus are unlike most sauropods: the forelimbs were longer than the hindlimbs, which resulted in a steeply inclined trunk, and its tail was shorter in proportion to its neck. Can you imagine having stilts attached to your arms, forcing you to stand at an awkwardly high-headed position? These dinos definitely didn't need any posture lessons, though they probably spent a lot of time looking down on everyone else.
Which dinosaur is said to have been the dumbest?
Now, we don't like to judge here at The Quiz, but certain things must be said. This dinosaur would have been the knob in the classroom, the one kid who never cracked a book or ate an apple or caught the ball in gym class. Poor them, you might say! But would they really have had it so bad if everyone in their entire species were that stupid? Probably not. Big lizard love knows no intellectual bounds. Do you know which dinosaur is said to have been the dumbest?
How long did the average T-Rex live?
In the movie Jurassic Park, the T-Rex's footsteps caused massive impact tremors from afar, giving everyone in their cars lots of time to panic and plan for her approach. Of course, in real life, a predator could not have survived if their footsteps could be heard for miles around! So it would have had to either be much quieter, or much quicker in order to hunt well. If they're good at finding food, how long would the average T-Rex live?
When was one of the first big dinosaur movies, The Lost World, released?
The Lost World is a silent fantasy monster adventure film adapted from Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel of the same name. In the British film, professor Challenger announces that prehistoric creatures are alive and flourishing in the Amazon jungle and declares his intention to mount an expedition proving his point. A Journalist volunteers to go and convinces his newspaper to fund the journey. Meanwhile, Paula White hopes to find her father, a missing explorer. They and others undertake the voyage and witness dinosaurs and humanoids doing battle. Sign me up!
When did dinosaurs go extinct?
Yikes! What a terrible way to go. A meteor strikes, and either you're incinerated on the spot, or you suffocate from the smoke and ash, or you starve after a couple of days because the sun has been completely blotted out by said ash. It's a dark, cold, sad way to die. Human astronomers look out for similarly devastating meteors in our modern era, but even if they did give fair warning, there's not much we could do! Hopefully Elon Musk will have solved our space travel problems before then...
What is T-Rex's estimated maximum running speed?
Ugh, another question about the overly self-important T-Rex. When will he stop being the most important dino around? Probably never, thanks to the new Jurassic Park movies. I will admit to a couple of cool facts, however: The most complete specimen measures up to 12.3 m in length, up to 3.66 meters tall at the hips, and weighed 8.4 to 14 metric tons. Although other dinos rivaled or exceeded T-Rex in size, it is still among the largest known land predators and is estimated to have exerted the largest bite force among all terrestrial animals. That's a bit cool... I guess...
Who wrote Jurassic Park?
Yes, we do have a couple of questions about this largely inaccurate film. It's hard to avoid, especially given the large number of modern-day passionate dinosaur aficionados who got their first taste for dinosaur love from the Spielberg film. Did you watch it in theaters with your parents, or were you old enough to go alone? Maybe you're like me, and you saw it much later on VHS, making fun of the special effects (and noting the mistakes)! Either way, it's an important dinosaur film.
How many dinosaur species have been officially named?
Did you know that dinosaur fossils have been known for millennia, although their true nature was not recognized for generations? The Chinese, whose modern word for dinosaur is kǒnglóng (or "terrible dragon"), considered them to be dragon bones and documented them as such! Villagers in central China have long unearthed fossilized "dragon bones" for use in traditional medicines, a practice that continues today. In Europe, dinosaur fossils were generally believed to be the remains of giants and other biblical creatures. Cool, eh?
Apatosaurus is also widely known by what other name?
The Apatosaurus has some confusing body functions which stumped scientists for many years. Given the large body mass and long neck of Apatosaurus, physiologists encountered problems determining how these animals breathed. Beginning with the assumption that Apatosaurus did not have a diaphragm, it could not have breathed in enough oxygen in order to function with the presumed lung capacity. So how did it live? Its respiratory system would likely have been parabronchi, with multiple pulmonary air sacs like modern birds. Meaning, it breathed in and out at the same time!
How many species of dinosaurs have been found in Britain?
Britain certainly has a reputation for plundering the treasures of the world and keeping them for themselves, but in this case they have more than enough of their own collection to chose from. This "dinosaur paradise" as it is known (a bit cheeky, if you ask me) included stegosaurs, ankylosaurs, ornithopods and gigantic sauropods, one of which may be the largest dinosaur found in Europe. Well, they can keep those for themselves. I like the Canadian collection much better, thank you!
How long is the biggest dinosaur skull ever found?
These dinosaurs are certainly very cool-looking. The Torosaurus possessed one of the largest skulls of any known land animal. It had a frilled skull is thought to have measured about 26 to 30 ft and weighed four to six tonnes! Torosaurus is distinguished from the Triceratops by an elongate frill with large openings, the long frill with a trough on their upper surface, and the presence of five or more pairs of hornlets on the back of the frill. Wouldn't you like a hat like that?
What dinosaur had 15 horns used for defence?
This member of the Ceratopsidae family sure looks nuts! You just can't make this up. They are the most ornate of any known dinosaur. The horns above the eyes are long, thin, and pointed... I wonder if they ever poked each other in the eye by accident? There is a forehead-like hump on the skull roof in front of the eye sockets, and the nasal horncore, the bony projection from which the nose horn grew, is flattened and blade-like. How ridiculously fancy.