ExtinctZoo - 20 Minutes of Dinosaur Facts You Didn't Know You Needed To Know

Episode Date: July 26, 2025

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It matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay. struggle with any of the following problems, not knowing what to talk about on a first date, clueless on how to socialize out a party, or perhaps nervous about an upcoming networking event. Well, if any of this applies, then this video might be for you. And if not, then still stick around, because I'm about to enlighten you on a bunch of random, obscure dinosaur facts that might just come in handy one day. Or might not, but hey, at least they're interesting. And let's start with one that likely won't even remain true by this time next year, or even next month.

and that is the most recently described dinosaur, which was the Enigma Cursor Mali Borthy, both a mouthful and a neornithician herbivore from the late Jurassic period. Well, at least this would have been the newest, a week ago when I started researching this, but as fate would have it, there has been a new find since, with the new, newest dinosaur, being the Chinese sauropod Tongnan-Long-Zimingi. Again, another one of those species with a tricky name, but it still doesn't come close to micro-cephalosaurus Hongtung to unensis, meaning, small, thick-headed lizard of Hong Tuyang, who holds the crown for the longest name of any dinosaur species.

Meanwhile, the shortest winner, ghost Yi Qi, which possesses the absolute least amount of letters allowed by the group that makes the rules on naming dinosaurs. And yes, that's a real group. And ironically, both the longest and shortest named dinosaurs lived in Mesozoic China. And speaking of China, it is one of the top three countries where the most dinosaurs have been unearthed, with the other two being U.S. and Argentina. And actually, it's just the top top two. 10 countries that account for 3 fourths of all known dinosaur species. But then on the opposite side of the spectrum, the largest country in the world where no dinosaurs have ever been found is the Democratic Republic of Congo, which in case you didn't know this

is the 11th largest country on Earth. Funnily enough, though, it is the supposed home to a mythological, apparently still-living dinosaur, named the Mochale Mbembe, which may or may not exist, emphasis on the knot. However, Mulkele Mbembe, or not, dinosaurs are indeed still all around us, seeing that birds are, well, literally theropods, and theropods are, well, literally dinosaurs. And the largest bird we know of that actually lived amongst its non-avian relatives was the Gargantuvius, an ostrich-sized bird from the late Cretaceous Hatsig Island, meaning it was really Europe that had the first big bird, not the US.

And so obviously, this was pretty meaty for a bird back in those times, but still pitifully small compared to its other cousins that it shared the planet with. As just the average-sized dinosaur across the board was about 4,282 kilograms, or 9,440 pounds. So just a little heavier than this EV Hummer right here. However, the median, which is better at showing the most common weight, was closer to 630 kilograms, or 1,389 pounds, so about the size of an adult bison. And so considering the average, you can bet there's quite a range in dinosaur size, with the largest known genus based off of uncontroversial and substantial evidence being the sarapod

Argentinosaurus, which weighed some 80 tons and measured 36 meters or 118 feet long, while the smallest dinosaur is actually a living one, if we include birds. With that title going to the bee hummingbird, which is about the size of your thumb. Pretty cool, right? So cool that maybe at this very moment you've been inspired to buy the legacy of these Titans. And I'm not talking about a chicken, but rather a fossil. But before you do, just make sure your finance. are in order, because they can be downright expensive, with the most costly fossil ever being sold

for $44.6 million, which if you're at the average human worldwide, would take you 4,597 years just to save up for it. And who was this good-looking expensive as H.E. Double Hockey Stick dinosaur, you may ask? Well, a remarkably well-preserved stegosaurus named Apex, who lived approximately 150 million years ago. So obviously, Stegosaurus being 150 million years old is quite, well, old. I mean, the Stegas was even ancient by dinosaur standards. In fact, it is so old that we Homo sapiens are closer to the T-Rex in time than the T-Rex was to the Stegasaurus. And actually, its entire group, the Stegasoria, were already long gone by the time the asteroid arrived. And just as an additional fun fact, those spikes at the end of its tail are called Thagamizer. And the reason why is

mainly because of a 1982 comic where a caveman teacher is teaching other cavemen about stegosaurus, and well, decided to call it a thagamizer. And yes, I'm serious. But now going back to the whole time thing, another one for the road is at the time between the Spinosaurus and the T-Rex, was approximately 93 times longer than the total existence of us modern humans. So yeah, dinosaurs have been around for a hot minute, and paleontologists currently think that the first in the scene, i.e. the oldest dinosaur was the Nyasosaurus, a smaller creature from Triassic Tanzania, who was around 243 million years old, making dinosaurs older than bees, pine trees, ants, flies, and turtles to name a few. On the other hand, the youngest known non-avian dinosaur is regarded by some to be the triceratops,

or rather a triceratops. As 13 centimeters or five inches below the pollen calibrated KT boundary, a lone triceratops horn was found. The youngest, bone yet. His discovery back in the early 2010s was also very big news, as it got rid of the Gap Hypothesis, which essentially claimed that dinosaurs had died before the asteroid as there was a geological zone of about 3 meters, or 10 feet, in which no dinosaur fossils had yet been found. And Triceratops actually holds another distinct distinction, as under phylogenetic nomenclature, dinosaurs are actually defined as of all the descendants of the most recent common ancestor of Triceratops and modern birds. In this,

might seem pretty specific, but it actually covers a lot, i.e. all dinosaurs. And dinosaurs ultimately came in just about every shape and size, which is why it's a bit surprising that as far as we know, there was never a fully marine dinosaur. Now there is evidence that semi-aquatic dinosaurs were a thing, but nothing 100% aquatic. And this actually extends to birds as well, seeing that even penguins don't spend their entire lives in the water. And no, the mosasaur doesn't count, as it is obviously not a dinosaur, and neither are pterosaurs or the Dometrhodon, which is often considered to be the animal most often mistaken for one. Now, on the flip side, the Ovaraptor was definitely a dinosaur, and if you see in the movie

called Dinosaur, or perhaps certain documentaries, you might think of it as an egg thief, with its name meaning exactly that. But, as it so turns out, this famous egg snatcher was innocent all along. You see, the holotype had been found on top of multiple eggs, leading to the idea that it had died mid-snack. But now, it is believed that those eggs were actually its own, meaning that in reality it was just a good mom that died trying to protect his children. A tragedy is those little unhatched guys had their entire lives in front of them. And some dinosaurs actually had rather long ones, the longest-lived believed to be saropods, who possibly could live to a maximum of a hundred years

or older, while smaller dinosaurs typically lived shorter lifespans. In a bit like trees, dinosaur bones also have growth lines, which allow paleontologists to sometimes take a stab at estimating the age of which a specimen died. And across the main dinosaur groups, those being the Ornithician, theropods, and saropotamorphs, the oldest confirmed age from each group has been a 31-year-old draconix, a 53-year-old Marraxies, and a 60-year-old Diplodoticus, respectively. Of course, though, older individuals are probably still out there. After all, it's thought that less than 1% of all dinosaurs that ever lived are actually represented in the fossil record. and there is no chance that we will ever find all the ones that did live.

But that being said, can you guess which dinosaur was the most common overall? And the answer is of course subject to change, but for now, many think it was the Edmontosaurus, a large North American hadrosaur, which is known through over 10,000, possibly 25,000, individuals. And this is actually a minimum, as this number pertains just to a single square kilometer from one of the formations it lived in, the last formation, which dates the Cretaceous. And the Cretaceous is, of course, one of the three periods, the time the dinosaurs lived through, the other two being the Triassic and Jurassic, that

altogether formed the Mesozoic, an era commonly nicknamed the Age of Dinosaurs. And did you know that throughout this entire period the Earth was so much warmer than the present that no dinosaur lived in a time of permanent ice sheets or glaciers? And this partially explains the fact that dinosaurs managed to live in every single continent, including Antarctica. And actually, because Antarctica was closer to Australia and South America, it's believed that certain groups like saropods would use the continent as a stepping stone to get to the other side, thus explaining why certain South American dinosaurs and Australian ones are so similar.

Now, migrating through Antarctica is pretty rad and all, but it's ultimately just one of the countless dinosaur facts out there. So to increase the ratio of dinosaur facts per minute, I'm going to go on a bit of a tangent, jumping from one fact to the next. So in other words, brace yourself. Dinosaurs, despite being known as the terrible lizards, are not lizards. They are in fact part of the clade Arcosaramorpha, which also contain terosaurs, crocodilians, etc. While lizards fall into the clade Lepidosaramorpha, which also contains groups such as snakes. Furthermore, all dinosaurs can technically be divided into just two groups. One being the dinosaurs with bird-like hips, while others are those who possessed lizard-like hips.

And dinosaurs lived so long ago that grass only evolved towards the end of their reign, roughly first appearing during the Albion stage of the Cretaceous. They are also so ancient that at the time of their existence, Earth was on the complete other side of the galaxy than it is today. So that line from Star Wars really ain't too inaccurate when applied to Jurassic Park. We often think of crocodiles as being somewhat dinosaur-like, and this is actually kind of correct, seeing that crocodiles are the closest thing we have to dinosaurs that are not dinosaurs, genetically speaking. And despite many thinking crocodiles are equally ancient, they didn't even actually

coexist with the terrible lizards, at least not the true crocs, with those only evolving some 46 million years ago. And one other fact that people often get wrong is the fact that fossils are not actually dinosaur bones, but rather what were their bones, which over a very long time have been surrounded by a sediment that hardened to rock, encasing the bones,

after which minerals very gradually replaced the bone's original material. And there is a pretty interesting technique to tell something you found is a rock or dinosaur bone, and that's to lick it. As fossils are more porous, meaning that your tongue will stick to them. But I wouldn't try this trick on any live specimens

if you ever find yourself in Jurassic Park, which, speaking of, the majority of the animals featured in Jurassic Park, are actually from the Cretaceous, not the Jurassic. But the creator decided on Jurassic because, well, he thought it sounded cooler. And to be honest, I kind of agree. What I also agree on being pretty cool, though, is the fact that records indicate that dinosaur bones have very many times confused ancient civilizations,

with the Chinese confusing them for dragon bones, while Europeans attributed them to biblical creatures and giants. And even in the early days of paleontology, dinosaurs were viewed as biblical creatures, at least for a bit, with one idea painting them to be animals designed to end the suffering of the old. And how? Well, of course, by killing them. But I'm about under-suffering, by speeding up the regurgitation of facts a little bit more. So let's go.

While birds are the last dinosaurs standing, they did almost join them in extinction. As despite the common belief, the KT asteroid did indeed kill off the vast majority of them. The fossilized poop of a dinosaur is referred to as a coprolite. and the largest one ever discovered is a specimen that's been named, specifically Barnum, which weighs about 9.3 kilos or 20 pounds, and is thought to have come from a T-Rex, where it is currently held within a museum in the U.S. finally named the Poozium. And granted, calling something dinosaur poop is rather specific. So how do we know it's really that?

Well, through various signs. In the case of Barnum, it was verified as a T-Rex droppings, as it was discovered next to a T-Rex skeleton, and add the typical shape of fossilized dung, as well as containing, crushed and digested fragments of bones, with a high-level phosphorus and calcium, which is typical among fossilized dung. And thanks that they're often huge sizes, number two ain't the only thing they've hit records on, with this group also representing the largest carnivores and herbivores to have ever lived. Not surprisingly, though, this also translates into the largest other things as well, including the largest claws, arms, legs, tails, and footprints of any known animal,

which, funny enough, though, does not include teeth but T-Rex teeth are oddly similar in size and shaped to bananas, so still plenty big. And despite looking comically small, each of its arms were able to lift things up to 199 kilos or 439 pounds. Furthermore, it's thought that at any given moment, approximately 20,000 T-Rex roamed North America during the Cretaceous, with the same study that supplied this number,

estimating that 2.5 billion T-Rex lived and died during the entire existence of the species. and one of its favorite prey, adrosaurs, would occasionally deliberately munch on rotten wood, likely to access fungi, decomposed wood material, and possibly the many insectivores trapped within. Let's get a little faster. Delophosaurus is the only dinosaur from the original Jurassic Park movie that it was significantly larger in real life than was portrayed. Paleontologists can sometimes tell the identity of a dinosaur off of a single bone or tooth, as certain ones possess autopomorphies, meaning trades only seen in certain taxonomic groups,

like species, genus, or families. An example of this is Spinosaur teeth, which have very unique features. The carnatoris is one of the more famous dinosaurs out there, yet despite its celebrity status, it is only known from a single skeleton, albeit a miraculously well-preserved and completed one. The non-avian dinosaurs survived approximately six extinction events until the seventh, ae that giant pesky asteroid, successfully took them out. The U.S. states where no dinosaur fossils have ever been found include Florida,

Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. A Washington was the most recent one to find a dino. Some dinosaurs had asymmetrical ears like an owl in order to help them hunt. At the same time, some dinosaurs laid perfectly spherical legs, imposed the oval shapes you often associate with both dinosaurs and birds. Fossil field does not come from dinosaurs. dinosaurs, dinosaurs were also called pachypodes, and the rex came awfully close to being named the manos spondalus, gigas. Even though saropods are much bigger, it is the rex who had the largest eyes of any known dinosaur dinosaur, and also that of any known terrestrial animal. So maybe

it's not shocking to hear then that unlike what you may have learned in Jurassic Park, the king had great eyesight. The original spinosaurus skeleton would destroy during World War II after an Allied bombing run, because the museum director, a diehard Nazi, was salty that the owner of the bones was not a Nazi supporter, and thus you refused to evacuate the fossils. As of now, the largest dinosaur with confirmed feathers was the predatory theropod Eutiranus, who lived in Cretaceous China and measured up to 9 meters or 30 feet long. It is also the largest two-legged thing ever found with confirmed evidence of feathers. And speaking of two-legged things, scientists will often use bipedal dinosaurs as a reference

when building bipedal robots, as their leg structures are sometimes considered more efficient than our own. There's almost a 100% chance that you've drank the very same water that a thirsty dinosaur gobbled down millions of years ago. Despite all the jokes that Tyrannosaurs get about having short arms, the ablisoridae, not the Tyrannosaurus, had the shortest forlun proportionally of any known dinosaur group, with the carnatoris in particular, having the shortest amongst that specific group. As a whole, the non-avian dinosaurs ruled Earth for about 165 million years, give or take, which

is almost three times the duration of so-called mammalian rule. The first dinosaurs to be named by a paleontologist, and you should know this by now if you watch our videos, hint hint, was the megalosaurus, a Jurassic-dated theropod that hails from England. A good chunk of dinosaur eggs and fossilized embryos shows signs of precociality, meaning many kinds of dinosaurs were born almost fully self-sufficient, no waiting around like us apes to become useful. T-Rex is more closely related to a hummingbird than many dinosaurs lived alongside, including the triceratops.

experienced shorter days and longer years than we do, due to the moon's differential position during the Mesozoic period, with days of the time lasting approximately 23.5 hours, while years went on for about 372 days. While sauropods, as I mentioned, could be massive, not all were ginormous, with the smallest, like Magurosaurus, Pallutatitan, and Eroposaurus, all being closer to a bole in size than an adult elephant. There was no carnivorous dinosaur that had four legs, like a lion or comodo dragon. While sauropods have always been pretty much depicted, as gentle giants, we weren't actually 100% sure that they ate green stuff, because despite them being shaped and designed like vegetarians, no concrete proof was known until recently, recently

meaning just this year. After fossilized gut content containing a bunch of leaves were found in a certain specimen, meaning that for nearly 150 years, we were only really guessing, smartly guessing, though. There is only one dinosaur that researchers are confident in that we know what it sounded like whilst alive, and that is the paracerolyphus, as in one study, researchers were able to reconstruct to complete 3D model of its iconic horn, and blue air through the passages, producing a sound that sounded like this. And obviously it's quite amazing that we have an idea of how at least one dinosaur sounded like, is this area of their life was once considered impossible to ever unlock.

And a similar situation is seen in dinosaur coloration, the field that for a long time was unknown. However, recently, certain paleontologists have realized that with an exceptionally preserved specimens, melanos can still be found. In organelle, that's the site for synthesis, storage, and transombs. support to Melodin within an animal, thus allowing us to analyze what color they might have been in life. And naturally, finding a melanosomes in a dinosaur is rather rare. But we have still found them. And here they are, along with their corresponding coloration. Buriala Pelta had a reddish-brown color to it, an unidentified hatterasaurus probably gray in life. At 2016, satacosaurus shows signs

of being counter-shaded with stripes and spots. The Yuan Chuevas was black and gray. Prototerics was also black, and Iocon Fukas Ornus, who had a secondary color as well, gray. Meanwhile, Cruelisbenia was of unknown color, but likely was in part darker shades of browns. Confucius was primarily gray with secondary areas of white. Changsui Ornus was black, and unnamed Boe Hieranithidae was weakly iridescent, Wu Long was iridescent and gray, cyanoceropteryx was countershaded with shades of white and reddish-brown, Sinosaurus was a mix of red and black, Microraptor, Iridescent Black, Haudanosaurus was a blend of red and brown,

Cotterix was dark gray and black, Ki-Hong was erodeson and black, then Bayeosaurus was light and dark brown, archaeopteryx was primarily black, and then finally, Anky Ornus was a mix of white, gray, and dark red. And another interesting thing about this last dinosaur is that another specimen found later on,

with melanosomes as well, seemed to have been a different color, leading paleontologists believed that the two specimens were possibly of different ages. And who knew that the color of dinosaurs dinosaurs would go from unknown to quite an extensive list. And it's really just one of the many advancements that we made in paleontology over the last few years.

And we now understand dinosaurs better than ever before. And obviously I can't tell you everything about dinosaurs in one video, but these facts so far should be more than enough info to bewilder a few people. Thanks for watching. No one goes to Hank's for his spreadsheets. They go for a darn good pizza. Lately though, the shop's been quiet.

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