Invent-a-saurus
The name "dinosaur" comes from two Greek words. The first is "deinos", which means huge or terrible. The second is "sauros", meaning lizard. So a dinosaur is a huge or terrible lizard.
The names of fossil species were invented by the scientists who first described them and were often derived from Greek or Latin, which were the original international languages of science. The name chosen may indicate what they looked like, how they behaved, where they came from, or even who discovered them.
So we can identify what each dinosaur was named for
• Triceratops (their head ornaments) Tri = three; ceratops = horned face
• Iguanodon (their teeth) Iguan = iguana (lizard); odon = tooth
• Deinonychus (their feet) Deino = terrible; onychus = claw
• Maiasuara (their behavior) Maia = good mother; saura = lizard
• Stegosaurus (their body features) Stego = roof; saurus = lizard
• Sonorasaurus (the place where it was found) Sonora = Sonoran Desert, saurus = lizard
1. Find out what these names mean.
Allosaurus Brachiosaurus Pentaceratops
2. Imagine that you are a famous paleontologist who just discovered a new dinosaur! Now you need to give it a scientific name. Combine the scientific word parts in the lists below to name your new dinosaur. You may use more than one word from each list.
Once you have named it draw an illustration of your discovery in its habitat. You might even write a story about the dinosaur you just discovered. You can write about the meaning of its name, its height , weight and length, what it ate, where it lived, what it liked to do...
Remember-use prefixes at the beginning of a word...a suffix is at the end of the word!
Beginning (prefix) brachio - arm/bronte - thunder/di - two/deino - terrible/gravis - heavy/frigo - cold/glyco - sweet/makros - long/megalo - large/micro - small/saltus - leaping/stegos - plated/teratos - monster/tri - three
Ending (suffix) ceratops - horned face/dipus - two-footed/gnathus - jaw/mimus - imitator/nychus - claw/ops - face/odon - teeth/pus - foot/raptor - thief/rhinos - nose/saurus - lizard/venator - hunter-
Click on the image of a "Parasaurolophus" to learn more about dinosaurs.
The name "dinosaur" comes from two Greek words. The first is "deinos", which means huge or terrible. The second is "sauros", meaning lizard. So a dinosaur is a huge or terrible lizard.
The names of fossil species were invented by the scientists who first described them and were often derived from Greek or Latin, which were the original international languages of science. The name chosen may indicate what they looked like, how they behaved, where they came from, or even who discovered them.
So we can identify what each dinosaur was named for
• Triceratops (their head ornaments) Tri = three; ceratops = horned face
• Iguanodon (their teeth) Iguan = iguana (lizard); odon = tooth
• Deinonychus (their feet) Deino = terrible; onychus = claw
• Maiasuara (their behavior) Maia = good mother; saura = lizard
• Stegosaurus (their body features) Stego = roof; saurus = lizard
• Sonorasaurus (the place where it was found) Sonora = Sonoran Desert, saurus = lizard
1. Find out what these names mean.
Allosaurus Brachiosaurus Pentaceratops
2. Imagine that you are a famous paleontologist who just discovered a new dinosaur! Now you need to give it a scientific name. Combine the scientific word parts in the lists below to name your new dinosaur. You may use more than one word from each list.
Once you have named it draw an illustration of your discovery in its habitat. You might even write a story about the dinosaur you just discovered. You can write about the meaning of its name, its height , weight and length, what it ate, where it lived, what it liked to do...
Remember-use prefixes at the beginning of a word...a suffix is at the end of the word!
Beginning (prefix) brachio - arm/bronte - thunder/di - two/deino - terrible/gravis - heavy/frigo - cold/glyco - sweet/makros - long/megalo - large/micro - small/saltus - leaping/stegos - plated/teratos - monster/tri - three
Ending (suffix) ceratops - horned face/dipus - two-footed/gnathus - jaw/mimus - imitator/nychus - claw/ops - face/odon - teeth/pus - foot/raptor - thief/rhinos - nose/saurus - lizard/venator - hunter-
Click on the image of a "Parasaurolophus" to learn more about dinosaurs.
