Dinosaur which is the combination of two Greek words deinos and sauros means terrible lizard. Dinosaur was coined by a British scientist named Sir Richard Owen in 1841. He gave this name to the magnificent fossilized creatures that were being unearthed by paleontologists.
Dinosaurs were magnificent animals that roamed the earth, but are extinct now. Museums (Creation and Natural History) around the world have fossilized skeletal specimens of these creatures on display. Scientists hunt for fossil remains of dinosaur bones and teeth buried in rocks. They use these as clues to figure out as much as they can about dinosaurs.At the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania they have a Paleolab. It is an authentic lab where specialists called preparators remove fossils from the surrounding rock, clean and repair them, and get them ready for display or research.
Dinosaurs were reptiles, like iguanas, komodo dragons and crocodiles today. Like all reptiles, they had scaly skin and laid eggs. But unlike other reptiles, dinosaur legs worked like our legs, rather than sticking out sideways. Also dinosaurs did not drag their tails behind them, but were positioned in the air.
The Carnegie Museum of Natural History has many magnificent dinosaur fossils on display in their exhibit called, Dinosaurs in Their Time. Here is some of the most famous dinosaurs in their exhibit : Diplodocus carnegii, Tyrannosaurus rex, Apatosaurus louisae, Allosaurus fragilis, Stegosaurus ungulatus, Triceratops brevicornus.
When I was a child my favorite field trip was to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History where we would see the dinosaurs. They were creatures we could only imagine, so to see their bones was simply amazing. I'll still love seeing this dinosaur collection today.
For more information on dinosaurs go to http://www.carnegiemnh.com .
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