Dinosaurs, fossils and life long before us.
About this quiz
This Dinosaur Quiz starts with the famous names, like Tyrannosaurus rex and the long-necked sauropods, then digs into what fossils reveal: how old a dinosaur was when it died, what it ate, why feathers first evolved and where birds fit in.
Prehistory beyond the dinosaurs is here too: giant sharks, strange early animals, extinctions, Ice Age hunters and early humans. Some questions are about the fossil hunters themselves, from an eighteenth-century naturalist puzzling over a flying reptile to a Polish expedition leader in the Gobi. Every round is 10 questions on a 20-second clock, with a fact after each answer.
Try a few questions
Tap an answer to check it, or open the answer underneath.
Titanoboa, which lived around 58 million years ago in Colombia, was what?
- A snake about 13 metres long
- A flightless bird taller than a man
- A turtle the size of a car
- A crocodile with a shell
Answer: A snake about 13 metres long
Did you know? Weighing over a tonne, Titanoboa was thicker than a man's waist and dwarfs today's largest anacondas. Its size suggests the tropics were several degrees hotter then, since cold-blooded giants need warmth to function.
A rare fossil from Mongolia captures two dinosaurs, a Velociraptor and a Protoceratops, preserved forever doing what?
- Fighting each other
- Nesting together
- Eating the same plant
- Sleeping
Answer: Fighting each other
Did you know? The famous 'Fighting Dinosaurs' fossil shows the two locked in combat, buried suddenly, perhaps by a collapsing dune. It's a breathtaking freeze-frame of a life-and-death struggle from around 75 million years ago.
Modern birds are classified by scientists as what?
- Living dinosaurs
- Close relatives of dinosaurs, but not dinosaurs
- Descendants of early mammals
- Descendants of pterosaurs
Answer: Living dinosaurs
Did you know? They sit inside the theropod group alongside Tyrannosaurus, so the lineage never actually ended. Saying dinosaurs went extinct is a shorthand for the non-avian ones.
The premise of cloning dinosaurs from DNA in amber is impossible because dinosaur DNA has done what?
- Turned to stone
- Been eaten by bacteria only
- Completely broken down over time
- Never existed
Answer: Completely broken down over time
Did you know? DNA decays over thousands of years, and after tens of millions it's utterly gone, even in amber-trapped insects. No genuine dinosaur DNA has ever been recovered, so a real Jurassic Park remains firmly fiction.
Tyrannosaurus rex is famous for having what feature that seems oddly out of proportion?
- Enormous ears
- No tail
- Very short arms
- A tiny head
Answer: Very short arms
Did you know? T. rex's arms were startlingly small for such a huge predator, yet they were heavily muscled and could still exert real force. Exactly what it used them for — gripping prey or mates, or rising from the ground — is still debated.
For centuries in China, dinosaur fossils were collected and ground up as what?
- Dragon bones used in medicine
- Grave offerings
- Building mortar
- White paint pigment
Answer: Dragon bones used in medicine
Did you know? Apothecaries sold the powder as a remedy for everything from cramps to nightmares. Palaeontologists have since tracked down important fossil beds by asking pharmacists where their 'dragon bones' came from.