General Knowledge · Class 9 · Nature and animals
Dinosaurs and early life
Some dinosaurs are still alive today, and you may have seen one this morning. Which ones?
Small test at the end: scroll down to the end of this page for five short questions that check what you have learnt. Tap an answer, then press Check answer. Go to the questions ↓
Jump to: Read first · Try it away from the screen · Check it yourself · Check yourself · For teachers
Read first
6 facts. The questions below make you use them, not just remember them.
- Dinosaurs lived from about 230 million to 66 million years ago. Their age ended when a huge asteroid hit near today's Mexico, at a time when giant volcanoes in India's Deccan were also erupting.
- Birds evolved from small, feathered dinosaurs. Scientists count birds as living dinosaurs.
- Modern humans appeared only about 300,000 years ago, so no human ever saw a living T. rex.
- India has rich dinosaur finds: nests of eggs at Balasinor in Gujarat and near Jabalpur, and the meat-eating Rajasaurus, found in the Narmada valley.
- The oldest signs of life are fossils of microbes about 3.5 billion years old. For most of Earth's history, life was only tiny single cells.
- Scientists find the age of fossils from the age of the rock around them, measured using radioactive elements that change at a steady rate.
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Try it away from the screen
Draw a timeline on a long strip of paper, 1 cm for every 10 million years. Mark when dinosaurs began (230 million years ago), when they ended (66 million) and when humans appeared. How close to the end is the human mark?
Make it on paper. Keep it with you. Nothing to upload.
Check it yourself
Dinosaur pictures change as new fossils are found: many now have feathers. Check the date of a picture, and prefer museum websites to toy-like drawings.
Check yourself
Five questions about what this page teaches. Choose an answer and press Check answer, or open "See the answer and why". Nothing is saved or sent: your choices stay on this screen and disappear when you leave or reload the page.
How do you want to answer? You choose, and you can change at any time.
See the answer and why
- A. Birds Correct. Yes. Birds evolved from small feathered dinosaurs.
- B. Crocodiles, which look so much like them Not this one. Crocodiles are close cousins of dinosaurs, not their descendants.
- C. Sharks Not this one. Sharks are fish, much older than dinosaurs.
- D. Lizards Not this one. Lizards are reptiles, but a separate line from dinosaurs.
See the answer and why
- A. Only the very first humans did Not this one. Even the earliest humans came millions of years too late.
- B. No, T. rex died out about 66 million years before humans Correct. Yes. The gap is enormous.
- C. Yes, but only in Africa Not this one. No human anywhere ever met a T. rex.
- D. Yes, with spears and traps Not this one. Humans appeared only about 300,000 years ago.
See the answer and why
- A. 66 Not this one. That is when they ended, not how long they lived.
- B. 174 Not this one. Check the tens: 66 + 174 is 240.
- C. 164 Correct. Yes. 230 − 66 = 164 million years.
- D. 296 Not this one. That adds the two numbers instead of taking away.
See the answer and why
- A. A kind of flying reptile Not this one. Flying reptiles were pterosaurs. Rajasaurus walked on two legs.
- B. A plant-eating dinosaur from China Not this one. It was found in the Narmada valley of India, and it ate meat.
- C. A meat-eating dinosaur found in India Correct. Yes. Its name means "king lizard".
- D. A sea creature like a giant turtle Not this one. It lived and hunted on land, not in the sea.
See the answer and why
- A. By dating the rock layers around it Correct. Yes. Radioactive elements in certain rocks change at a steady rate.
- B. By its colour: darker fossils must always be the older ones Not this one. Colour depends on the minerals, not the age.
- C. By counting its rings like a tree Not this one. Bones do not have yearly rings like trees.
- D. By weighing it Not this one. Weight tells you about size and minerals, not age.
For teachers and grown-upsWhere the facts come from, and how to use this round.
Sources and notes
- Rajasaurus narmadensis was described in 2003 from fossils found in the Narmada valley (Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh).
- Balasinor (Raiyoli) Dinosaur Fossil Park, Gujarat. The Chicxulub impact is dated to about 66 million years ago.
- Timeline: 1 cm per 10 million years puts humans 0.03 mm from the end.