The Exciting World of Dinosaur Discovery How many dinosaurs can you name? If you're a keen dinosaur enthusiast, you may be able to dazzle your friends with a list of twenty or more multi-syllabic mouthfuls. So far, 500 species of dinosaur have been discovered worldwide, but palaeontologists (scientists who study ancient life) are convinced that thousands and thousands of new kinds of dinosaurs will be identified in years to come. So, if you become a dinosaur scientist, there's a very good chance that you could one day discover a new dinosaur species. Dinosaurs were not the big, slow, stupid animals we once thought they were. It's clear that they were a surprisingly diverse group. Some were as tiny as the birds you see on a city street; others were large enough to balance on a see-saw with a blue whale. They lived in jungles, in ice fields, or in bone-dry deserts; some may have hibernated or migrated. And there is growing evidence that many dinosaurs lived in large social groups, and that young dinosaurs relied on their parents' care for the first months, and maybe even years, of their lives. Dinosaurs were as fascinating and different from one another as you are from a chipmunk or a walrus. New species of dinosaurs evolved and others disappeared many, many times during the 160 million years that we now call the age of dinosaurs. In fact, dinosaurs were on Earth at least forty times as long as humans have been here! As you read this book, you'll see that ideas about dinosaurs are always changing and that palaeontologists often disagree about how certain dinosaurs lived. This makes sense when you consider that no one has ever seen a living dinosaur. Everything we think we know about dinosaurs is interpreted from the fossilized remains of their dead bodies or from trace fossils, fossils formed when a dinosaur was still alive, such as footprints, trackways, eggs, nests, or "poops." Each new discovery provides a palaeontologist with a chance to question assumptions, even those upon which their own work is based. New technologies let them test new theories or look at familiar fossils in new ways. Look for the special profiles of researchers, dinosaurs, and trace-fossil finds scattered throughout this book to alert you to some "hot-off-the-press" dinosaur debates. Excerpted from Canadian Dinosaurs by Elin Kelsey All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.