Dinosaurs: The Most Famous

Tyrannosaurus rex

Probably the most famous predator of all: up to 13 metres long, with a massive skull and banana-sized teeth. It lived at the end of the Cretaceous in what is now North America.

💡 Did you know? Despite its huge body, its arms were tiny: barely longer than a human arm.

Triceratops

A bulky plant-eater with three horns and a large bony neck frill. It lived at the same time as T. rex and was one of its possible prey.

💡 Did you know? Its skull, up to 2.5 metres long, is among the largest of any land animal.

Stegosaurus

Unmistakable for the two rows of large bony plates along its back and the spikes on its tail. This plant-eater lived in the Jurassic of North America.

💡 Did you know? Its brain was only about the size of a walnut: tiny for a nine-metre animal.

Velociraptor

A small, agile hunter with a sickle-shaped claw on each hind foot. In reality it was only about the size of a turkey and wore feathers.

💡 Did you know? The ‘raptors’ in Jurassic Park are shown far too large and without feathers.

Brachiosaurus

A giant long-neck whose front legs were longer than its hind legs: so its neck rose steeply upward like a giraffe's.

💡 Did you know? With its high-held head it could browse leaves more than twelve metres up.

Diplodocus

One of the longest dinosaurs ever: a slender long-neck with an extremely long neck and whip-like tail, up to 27 metres long.

💡 Did you know? It may have been able to crack its tail like a whip: faster than the speed of sound.

Spinosaurus

A colossal predator with a sail of back spines and a crocodile-like snout. It lived partly in water and hunted fish.

💡 Did you know? It was probably even longer than Tyrannosaurus rex.

Ankylosaurus

A living tank: its back and head were covered in bony plates, and its tail ended in a heavy bony club for defence.

💡 Did you know? A blow from its tail club could break an attacker's bones.