How it works
All 206 dinosaurs are real, from Archaeopteryx at about half a metre to Supersaurus at about 35 metres. Press Pick 5 new dinosaurs: each card says when it lived, what it ate, how long it grew and where it was found.
Read the full guide
Period first, then diet and size
The menu under the button reads Any period. Change it to Triassic (about 252 to 201 million years ago), Jurassic (201 to 143) or Cretaceous (143 to 66). Here 136 dinosaurs are Cretaceous, 60 are Jurassic and only 10 are Triassic. The next menu sets the diet, and size buttons are under More filters: Jurassic with Meat-eaters leaves 19. Eoraptor and Massospondylus, whose diet is still debated, appear only under Any diet.
A dinosaur randomizer for a size line-up
Line the five up from shortest to longest. To guess first, press Hide all facts. Press Show fact on a card to bring its line back.
- Say a long name in parts: Pachy, cephalo, saurus. The whole name means thick-headed lizard.
- Under More filters press Giants, 15 m and up, draw one and pace it out. Diplodocus is about 26 metres: 26 big steps.
- To keep a favourite, take the others away with × and press again. Then press Print for a wall chart with facts.
Questions and answers
Does the random dinosaur generator only pick real dinosaurs?
Yes. In September 2026 every name was checked against Wikipedia's list of dinosaur names, and all but ten against the Natural History Museum's Dino Directory. Pteranodon and Mosasaurus were not dinosaurs, so they are in the random extinct animal generator.
Why does my book give a different length?
A length runs nose to tail and is worked out from the bones there are, so experts differ. Most cards show the museum's figure, or a range where Wikipedia differs from it by more than about a fifth. Argentinosaurus reads about 30 to 35 metres.
Are birds really dinosaurs?
Yes. Scientists class birds as living dinosaurs, the only ones left today. Archaeopteryx, one of the smallest here, had feathers and broad wings back in the Late Jurassic. For the living kind, try the random bird generator.