Dinosaur Quiz Questions With Answers: 34 Easy to Hard

These dinosaur quiz questions with answers are for every dinosaur fan, from the five year old who can pronounce Pachycephalosaurus to the adult who still stops at every museum skeleton. We put together 34 questions in three rounds. Easy covers the dinosaurs everyone knows, their diets and the basics of fossils. Medium moves on to the three periods of the Mesozoic, dinosaur groups and what their names really mean. Hard goes after big finds, the people who started the science and the strange words paleontologists use. Each question has one correct answer in bold right underneath, followed by a one-line fact. Use it in a classroom, at a family quiz night or on a rainy afternoon. When you want real pressure, the live version gives you 10 seconds per question against a real opponent, and faster correct answers score more.

Play it live

Reading the answers is one thing. Remembering them in under 10 seconds is another. Play the live dinosaur quiz and face another player on the same 7 questions, with question 7 counting double. Or try Quick match for a random opponent on any topic.

Easy dinosaur quiz questions

1. Which long-necked dinosaur had a very long, whip-like tail?
   Answer: Diplodocus
   Its tail made up a large part of its total body length.

2. Did dinosaurs and people ever live at the same time?
   Answer: No
   The last non-bird dinosaurs died out tens of millions of years before the first humans appeared.

3. What do we call an animal that eats only meat?
   Answer: A carnivore
   T. rex and Allosaurus were carnivores.

4. Which tiny meat-eating dinosaur was about the size of a chicken?
   Answer: Compsognathus
   It is one of the smallest dinosaurs known from a fairly complete skeleton.

5. Which animals alive today are often called living dinosaurs?
   Answer: Birds
   Scientists class birds as a surviving branch of the dinosaur family tree.

6. Which dinosaur name means "thunder lizard"?
   Answer: Brontosaurus
   The name was chosen because of its enormous size.

7. Was Pteranodon a dinosaur?
   Answer: No, it was a pterosaur
   Pterosaurs were flying reptiles that lived alongside dinosaurs.

8. What did Triceratops mostly eat?
   Answer: Plants
   Its sharp beak and rows of teeth were made for slicing tough plants.

9. Which film series about cloned dinosaurs includes Jurassic World, released in 2015?
   Answer: Jurassic Park
   Jurassic World is the fourth film in the series.

10. Did dinosaurs lay eggs?
    Answer: Yes
    Fossil dinosaur eggs and nests have been found in many parts of the world.

11. Which parts of a dinosaur are most often found as fossils?
    Answer: Bones and teeth
    Hard parts fossilise far more easily than skin or muscle.

12. Which big meat eater was a top predator in Late Jurassic North America?
    Answer: Allosaurus
    It lived millions of years before T. rex.

Medium dinosaur quiz questions

13. How many periods make up the Mesozoic Era?
    Answer: Three
    They are the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous.

14. Which period came between the Triassic and the Cretaceous?
    Answer: The Jurassic
    It is named after the Jura Mountains on the border of France and Switzerland.

15. Triceratops belongs to which group of horned, frilled dinosaurs?
    Answer: Ceratopsians
    The group also includes Protoceratops and Styracosaurus.

16. Were the front legs of Brachiosaurus longer or shorter than its back legs?
    Answer: Longer
    This gave it a sloping back, a bit like a giraffe.

17. Which giant sea reptile, not a dinosaur, leaps from a lagoon in Jurassic World?
    Answer: Mosasaurus
    Mosasaurs were marine reptiles related to lizards and snakes.

18. Dimetrodon had a sail on its back. Was it a dinosaur?
    Answer: No
    It lived millions of years before the first dinosaurs and was more closely related to mammals.

19. Which dinosaur name means "terrible claw"?
    Answer: Deinonychus
    It had a large curved claw on the second toe of each foot.

20. Which supercontinent existed when the first dinosaurs appeared?
    Answer: Pangaea
    It slowly broke apart during the Mesozoic.

21. Which dinosaur name means "roof lizard"?
    Answer: Stegosaurus
    Early scientists thought its plates lay flat on its back like roof tiles.

22. What evidence shows that Velociraptor had feathers?
    Answer: Quill knobs on its forearm bone
    These bumps are where feathers anchor to the bone in modern birds.

23. What covered the back of Ankylosaurus?
    Answer: Bony armour
    Plates of bone set in the skin protected it from predators.

24. What is the name for the set of spikes on the end of a Stegosaurus tail?
    Answer: The thagomizer
    The word started as a joke in a Far Side cartoon by Gary Larson.

Hard dinosaur quiz questions

25. Which dinosaur, named in 1825, was described by Gideon Mantell from its teeth?
    Answer: Iguanodon
    Mantell thought the teeth looked like giant iguana teeth.

26. Saurischian dinosaurs such as T. rex and Diplodocus are known as what?
    Answer: Lizard-hipped dinosaurs
    Despite the name, birds evolved from this group.

27. Which small feathered dinosaur from China had long flight feathers on all four limbs?
    Answer: Microraptor
    It is often described as a four-winged dinosaur.

28. Which American fossil hunter found the first Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton, in 1902?
    Answer: Barnum Brown
    He made the find in Montana for the American Museum of Natural History.

29. Which huge sauropod is named after the South American country where it was found?
    Answer: Argentinosaurus
    It is among the largest land animals ever discovered.

30. What is the rivalry between fossil hunters Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh called?
    Answer: The Bone Wars
    Their race in the late 1800s led to the naming of dozens of new dinosaurs.

31. Which dolphin-shaped marine reptiles did Mary Anning help bring to fame?
    Answer: Ichthyosaurs
    They gave birth to live young at sea.

32. The end of which period, 66 million years ago, marks the dinosaur extinction?
    Answer: The Cretaceous
    The event is known as the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction.

33. What does the dinosaur name "Ankylosaurus" mean?
    Answer: Fused lizard
    Many of the bones in its skull and armour were fused together.

34. Which large meat-eating dinosaur from Argentina rivalled T. rex in size?
    Answer: Giganotosaurus
    Its name means "giant southern lizard".

Play it live against a real opponent

Think you would score 34 out of 34? Prove it under pressure. The live dinosaur quiz puts you against another player on 7 questions about T. rex, Triceratops, fossils and the Mesozoic, with 10 seconds each. Send a challenge link to a friend or a classmate, or jump into Quick match to face someone new on any topic. Every match earns XP toward your Dinosaurs level and moves you up the leaderboards.

FAQ

Are these dinosaur questions good for kids?

Yes. The Easy round suits younger players and anyone who loves dinosaur books and films. The Medium and Hard rounds use more scientific names and suit older children and adults.

Are the answers based on current science?

We only use well established facts, such as dinosaur names, the periods they lived in and famous discoveries. Details like colour or exact size can change as new fossils are found, so we leave those out.

How does the live dinosaur quiz work?

Two players answer the same 7 questions with 10 seconds per question. Faster correct answers score more points, and question 7 counts double. Each match earns XP toward your Dinosaurs topic level and helps you climb leagues and leaderboards.