Fascinating Nature
Dinosaur Kingdom
Dinosaurs left behind bones, eggs, footprints and even fossil poop! One giant dinosaur once lived right here in Telangana. Let's dig deeper.
Did you know?
Birds are living dinosaurs! Scientists say today's birds come from small dinosaurs. So the sparrow chirping outside your window has dinosaur ancestors (family members from long, long ago).
Pterosaurs flew over the dinosaurs' heads, but they were not dinosaurs. They were reptile cousins. Each wing was a sheet of skin held up by one super-long finger!
Fossil poop has a name: coprolite, meaning 'dung stone'. One found in Canada, possibly from a T. rex, was 44 cm long (longer than your school ruler) and full of bits of bone!
Try this: Make a Fossil Print
Flatten a ball of play dough or clay into a thick pancake. Gently press a shell, a leaf or a toy animal's feet into it, then lift it out. You have made a 'trace fossil', a print just like the dinosaur footprints left in soft mud that later turned to stone. Let it dry and show your family!
Go further: Telangana's Own Dinosaur
Long before T. rex, a giant plant-eater walked through the land that is now Telangana. Its bones were found near Yamanpalli village, and in 1988 it was named Kotasaurus. It was a sauropod (a long-necked dinosaur that walked on four legs), about 9 metres long. It lived more than 18 crore years ago. Its skeleton, put together by the Geological Survey of India, stands in the Birla Science Museum in Hyderabad.