Fossil Folly Activity

Fossil Folly Activity Card A box of bones has been delivered to Dina Digg at the Dinosaur Museum and she has tried to put them together, but she’s not sure she’s got it right. The bones were discovered during the excavation of chalk marl and shale during the building of the Channel Tunnel. No one has ever seen a living, moving dinosaur, but lots of dinosaurs’ bones have been found. Putting them together is not always an easy job. There have been plenty of dinosaur debates about the right way to assemble a skeleton. Your challenge Can you help Dina Digg to figure out how to put the dinosaur bones together? Is it a new dinosaur, unlike any ever found before? Has she got it wrong? Discuss Do you have a favourite dinosaur? What did they look like? A few other investigators have had some ideas: I like the ostrich dinosaurs like Gallimimus. Their long legs helped them to run very fast. My favourite is the 26m long, plant-eating Diplodocus. It was built like a suspension bridge – with a very long neck and tail. Stegosaurus rules! It was a medium sized dinosaur with a solid body and short legs. It had tail spikes and defensive plates on its back. My vote goes to the agile Velociraptor. A small but deadly carnivore! It ran on two legs and had a long stiff tail that acted as a counterbalance. Iguanodon’s the one for me. It had a small head but a bulky body and a stiff tail. This meant it could stand on its back legs as well as walking on all four feet.

Getting started Make model dinosaurs to find out which combinations of body shapes are: • Most stable on two legs • Most stable on four legs • Best for reaching high leaves Which combinations work and which ones do not? Scientists compare fossil bones with the skeletons of living creatures to work out how to fit them together. Do the shapes that you made remind you of any living or extinct animals? Test your ideas Make a table to show which shapes work well together. Can you explain why? Body shape Stable on two legs Stable on four legs Good for reaching high leaves Now decide whether the dinosaur put together at the Dinosaur Museum is definitely a dinosaur or a dinosaur disaster! Share your ideas You could design a poster for Dina Digg at the Dinosaur Museum. You could include: •Drawings or photos of your dinosaurs and your ideas about why they were successful or not •Pictures of different dinosaurs that match the shapes that you have made • Explanations of why some dinosaur shapes helped them to survive.