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🏆 Palaeontologist quiz pack

Ages 13+ · Name: ______________________ · Score: ____ / 15

  1. 1. The traditional split of dinosaurs into Saurischia and Ornithischia was based on which part of the skeleton?

    • ☐ A. The hip bones, especially the direction of the pubis
    • ☐ B. The number of teeth
    • ☐ C. The number of fingers
    • ☐ D. The openings in the skull

  2. 2. What is the most precise way to find the age of a rock layer containing dinosaur fossils?

    • ☐ A. Carbon-14 dating the bones
    • ☐ B. Radiometric dating of volcanic ash layers above and below the fossil
    • ☐ C. Counting growth rings in the bones
    • ☐ D. Measuring how heavy the fossil is

  3. 3. Why can't carbon-14 dating be used on dinosaur fossils?

    • ☐ A. Dinosaur bones contained no carbon
    • ☐ B. It only works on rocks
    • ☐ C. Carbon-14 decays too fast to measure anything older than about 50,000 years
    • ☐ D. It is not allowed in museums

  4. 4. Which statement about birds is correct in modern classification?

    • ☐ A. Birds evolved from pterosaurs
    • ☐ B. Birds are a kind of mammal
    • ☐ C. Birds evolved from crocodiles
    • ☐ D. Birds are living theropod dinosaurs

  5. 5. The "Ornithoscelida" hypothesis (Baron and colleagues, 2017) proposed that theropods are most closely related to which group?

    • ☐ A. Sauropodomorphs
    • ☐ B. Ornithischians
    • ☐ C. Pterosaurs
    • ☐ D. Crocodilians

  6. 6. Which evidence best suggests many dinosaurs had high, bird-like growth rates?

    • ☐ A. Bone tissue (histology) showing fast growth and many blood vessels
    • ☐ B. The colour of their fossils
    • ☐ C. How they look in films
    • ☐ D. The number of toes they had

  7. 7. Which clade includes crocodilians, pterosaurs, dinosaurs and birds?

    • ☐ A. Synapsida
    • ☐ B. Archosauria
    • ☐ C. Squamata
    • ☐ D. Sauropterygia

  8. 8. Dimetrodon is more closely related to which of these animals?

    • ☐ A. Tyrannosaurus rex
    • ☐ B. Crocodiles
    • ☐ C. Lizards
    • ☐ D. Humans

  9. 9. What is the K–Pg boundary?

    • ☐ A. A mountain range in North America
    • ☐ B. The rock layer marking the first dinosaurs
    • ☐ C. A thin rock layer, rich in iridium, marking the end-Cretaceous extinction
    • ☐ D. A fault line in Mexico

  10. 10. Studies of Spinosaurus published in 2014 and 2020 sparked a debate about what?

    • ☐ A. How much time it spent in water and whether it hunted while swimming
    • ☐ B. Whether it had feathers on its sail
    • ☐ C. Whether it was actually a sauropod
    • ☐ D. Whether it lived in the Jurassic

  11. 11. Medullary bone found in a Tyrannosaurus fossil (2005) suggested what about that individual?

    • ☐ A. It was a young juvenile
    • ☐ B. It was a female producing eggs
    • ☐ C. It died of disease
    • ☐ D. It was a male

  12. 12. How have scientists worked out the colours of some feathered dinosaurs, like Sinosauropteryx?

    • ☐ A. From traces of paint on the fossils
    • ☐ B. By extracting dinosaur DNA
    • ☐ C. From the shapes of fossilised melanosomes
    • ☐ D. By guessing from modern lizards

  13. 13. Which definition of a clade is correct?

    • ☐ A. Animals that look similar
    • ☐ B. Animals that live in the same habitat
    • ☐ C. Animals of a similar size
    • ☐ D. A common ancestor and all of its descendants

  14. 14. Which mass extinction, the largest known, marks the start of the Mesozoic Era?

    • ☐ A. End-Cretaceous
    • ☐ B. End-Triassic
    • ☐ C. End-Permian
    • ☐ D. End-Devonian

  15. 15. Why are many dinosaur sizes shown as ranges instead of single numbers?

    • ☐ A. Most species are known from incomplete skeletons, and different estimation methods give different results
    • ☐ B. Scientists use different units
    • ☐ C. Fossils shrink after they are dug up
    • ☐ D. Every dinosaur was exactly the same size

Answer key

  1. A — Harry Seeley noticed in 1887 that ornithischians have a backward-pointing pubis, while most saurischians keep it pointing forward.
  2. B — Volcanic ash contains crystals that can be dated with uranium–lead or argon–argon methods, bracketing the fossil's age.
  3. C — Carbon-14 has a half-life of about 5,730 years, so virtually none is left after a few tens of thousands of years.
  4. D — Birds sit inside the theropod clade Coelurosauria, so in cladistic terms they are dinosaurs.
  5. B — It suggested grouping theropods with ornithischians, which would break up Saurischia; the idea is still debated.
  6. A — Thin slices of bone show fibrous, well-vascularised tissue typical of fast-growing, warm-bodied animals.
  7. B — Archosauria split into a crocodile line and a bird line, and the bird line includes pterosaurs and dinosaurs.
  8. D — Dimetrodon is a synapsid, the same lineage that later produced mammals, including us.
  9. C — In 1980 Luis and Walter Alvarez and colleagues linked the iridium spike in this layer to an asteroid impact.
  10. A — Its dense bones and paddle-like tail suggest a semi-aquatic life, but scientists disagree on whether it chased prey underwater or waded.
  11. B — In living birds, medullary bone forms only in egg-laying females as a calcium store for eggshells.
  12. C — Melanosomes are tiny pigment structures whose shapes match particular colours in living birds; they showed Sinosauropteryx had a ginger-and-white striped tail.
  13. D — A clade must include an ancestor and every descendant, which is why birds belong in Dinosauria.
  14. C — About 252 million years ago the end-Permian extinction wiped out most marine species and opened the way for the reptiles of the Mesozoic.
  15. A — Length and especially weight are estimated from partial bones using scaling methods or 3D models, and each method has uncertainty.