A Do-you-think-he-saurus.

Sorry not sorry, that was kind of lame, but it got us talking about dinosaurs!

The prehistoric reptiles fascinate almost all of us at some point.

I bet you know a lot about dinosaurs.

But let's run down a few of the things you might not know about them.

Let's just get this one out of the way first… humans and dinosaurs never coexisted.

Nope.

Never.

Sorry Flintstones fans..

The earliest human fossil we know of dates around 2.8 million years ago.

whereas the dinosaurs went exist like 65 million years ago.

So yeah.

That never happened.

But there were little proto-mammals running around with dinosaurs for nearly 150 million

years.

Some little guys looked like mice and weighed as little as 2 grams.

Others actually ate dinosaurs, yeah.

Some of the small species ate dino eggs.

(Not it didn't cause their extinction) But one study published in the journal Nature

described two species, that dined on dinosaurs.

Repenomamus giganticus and Repenomamus robustus, lived in China about 130 million years ago.

Like its name suggests, R. Giganticus, was pretty big for an early mammal, at about 3

feet long.

Speaking of big things, some giant Pterosaurs have wingspans over 30 feet long!

And they aren't dinosaurs!

Dinosaurs are terrestrial reptiles, so by definition, pterosaurs, a flying reptile,

don't make the cut.

They did co-exist, but they are separate groups descended from a common ancestor.

According to Smithsonian magazine, “pterosaur is no more a dinosaur than a goldfish is a

shark.”

Oops.

And one study published in the journal PLOS One found that they didn't use their legs

to push off the ground, they used their wings!

They would run down hill, into a head wind and launch themselves, like a pole vaulter,

into the air.

So yeah.. don't call them dinosaurs.

We know A LOT about dinosaurs, but there are some really enigmatic mysteries that remain.

Like, what did dinosaurs sound like?

Unfortunately soft tissue doesn't fossilize all that well, so we don't have an exact

idea of what kind of noises dinosaurs.

Although a recent discovery shed some light on dino sounds.

A new species of “terror bird” describe in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology

was found with a nearly complete skeleton… including voice box!

The researchers think that it used a narrow, low vocalization frequency range, to possibly

communicate or find prey.

Sounds pretty cool and could be the topic of a whole 'nother episode ...and maybe

if you were a subscriber you wouldn't miss that episode!

Last but not least..we still don't know what killed the dinosaurs.

I mean yeah, we've narrowed it down pretty close.

The KT event happened 65 million years ago, when an asteroid struck what is now the Yucatan

region of Mexico.

But my favorite hypothesis is that a global firestorm flash fried the dinosaurs.

I mean a lot of species were already on their way out when the asteroid hit.

One study published in the journal Nature suggests that a series of crazy volcanic eruptions

that started started 250,000 before the asteroid hit, might have killed a lot of them off.

As for that asteroid…

A few years ago, a study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research found that

when the asteroid hit it kicked up a lot dirt into the Earth's atmosphere.

With as much force as 100 trillion tons of TNT.

As the debris rained back down it could have heated the upper atmosphere to 2,700 degrees

Fahrenheit (1,482 degrees Celsius).

It might have also caused a devastating winter like planet where nothing green could grow

so all the dinosaurs starved over months or years.

OOORRRR this theory suggests that it kicked off a world wide fire storm and the dinosaurs

baked to death in a matter of HOURS.

Wiping out 80% of all life on Earth.

Which is a really cool idea.

It's so .. Apocalyptical.

But versions of this story are over ten years old, one first appeared in the Bulletin of

the Geological Society of America in 2004.

Since then, some holes have been poked in it, like one study published in Journal of

the Geological Society found that fire storms weren't worldwide.

The heat pulses from the impact wouldn't have set nearby plants on fire, but could

have done some damage to those further away from the impact site.

Obviously more research is needed.

Personally, I kind of like the idea that what killed the dinosaurs still remains a mystery.

It's one of the most enduring, and frankly fun mysteries in science.

It keeps us curious.

Scientists learn new stuff all the time about dinosaurs.. sometimes they even re-learn old

things!

Check out Crystal as she explains why the name “brontosaurus” could be making a

comeback in

this episode here.