the intelligent dinosaur! In fact, it is believed this large brained (with imprints of the brain left on the fossilized skulls) dinosaur was the smartest ever with evidence of the brain beginning to fold (the more folds the more advanced). One of our videos even considered that had the dinosaurs not been wiped out this Cretaceous era carnivore could have evolved to the level of human intelligence. As is, they believe that the Troodon could have been as intelligent as the modern bird. A huge difference from the other small brained, large headed dinosaurs of lesser intelligence.

We actually had a 3 part video series to watch. I will post them all in order here. The Troodon makes for good video…



I found this dinosaur by looking through the list of the I’m a Dinosaur videos on youTube so of course I will post it here!

And now for the links of interest. There are TWO National Geographic ones, the main page HERE and the Kid’s HERE. Jurassic Park Wiki has a rather spooky picture and some information HERE. EnchantedLearning has a helpful fact sheet HERE. For 10 facts of interest on the Troodon check out Dinosaurs.about.com HERE. Test your knowledge with a question on Kidsdigdinos.com HERE. Charts and maps on Kidsdinos.com HERE. Of course Wiki has their article HERE, and  you can find our colouring page on Education.com HERE.

Joint effort

With our heightened interest in all things Chinese these weeks before Chinese New Year I decided that the next week of dinosaurs should all be found in CHINA! So we start with Psittacosaurus that I hunted down through our iPad App Fantastic Dinosaurs HD. This was one of the listed that has the 360 degree option with one of the images. This early Cretaceous herbivore was one of the first horned dinosaurs which could have potentially walked on two or four legs. This is a rather unusual dinosaur as it has been rediscovered to have had quills on its tail! Thus our colouring page HERE has the funky tail as does the illustrations (that Emanuel says are CUTE) on the app.

Our video is from youTube and the Houston Museum of Natural Science.

And now, of course… LINKS! Though I must warn you… most do NOT deal with the quills. So here goes… EnchantedLearning and their “parrot lizard” information HERE has a very interesting profile image showing the beak like nose and mouth. Emanuel always is happy when Kidsdinos.com covers our dinosaur. He just loves their charts HERE. The American Museum of Natural History has a great picture of the cheek horns HERE. Animal Planet has a page about our dinosaur HERE. There is a bit of a spooky action shot on the Jurassic Park page HERE. Dinosaurs.about.com has a list of facts HERE. Wiki has  their page HERE, and I am including an article that went over Emanuel’s head but is informative about the quills HERE.

Quills

Now here is a place where Jurassic Park MAY have gotten it wrong, I don’t know if you remember this movie (I certainly do), but early on there are these dinosaurs, not overly huge, that only only had this weird crest  that opened up around their head but they ALSO spit poison. I think that is when the overweight employee who was stealing DNA samples is killed or something like that. Blinded at least. Well, according to our research there is NO proof that either this crest OR the poison spitting truly occurred. Of course, it was still a rather unique looking dinosaur with its crest on the top of its head and ability to run. We actually had two videos this time (no, I did NOT show Emanuel the JP clip, no need to muddy the waters with an artist’s rendition of the dinosaur with “extras”). First, I’m a Dinosaur.

Our second video is a Discovery one, so you have go to the site it is posted on and view it HERE.

Now for our links. This dinosaur was around in the early Jurassic period on the riverbanks of Asia and North America, you can find a great kid drawn illustration and even a question to test your knowledge HERE. Curious about how this dinosaur sizes up against a human? Check HERE for a great illustration of that. EnchantedLearning has a fact sheet HERE. Kidsdinos.com has their usual helpful page HERE. Quite the colourful picture of our dinosaur HERE on Dinosaurs.about.com. Wiki has their information HERE.

We didn’t get into this site but enjoyed the image of the skeleton HERE. I am sure that it would be helpful for anyone who REALLY wanted to know more about this dinosaur. But first, before you truly head off and learn more… our colouring page was right HERE. This one was special, it has questions attached to answer. Which was a fun exercise for Emanuel and I to share what we remembered.

A series of worksheets on this one