Giganotosaurus Facts for Kids
Many young children enjoy the Disney Jr. show Gigantosaurus (real spelling Giganotosaurus). However, many young ones don’t realize that Giganto was a real dinosaur that roamed the earth millions of years ago!
Mesozoic Era
The Mesozoic Era was between 268-65 million years ago. It was the era of the dinosaur. It was divided into three time periods the Triassic, Jurassic, and the Cretaceous.
Triassic
The Triassic period was 248-206 million years ago. It ended with a natural disaster that killed off 90% of the earth’s species.
Small dinosaurs lived during the Triassic period. Some dinosaurs that lived during the Triassic period included Asylosaurus, Composaurus, Coelophysis, and Chindesaurus
Jurassic
The Jurassic period was from 208-146 million years ago. Tree and plants flourished during the Jurassic period.
Large dinosaurs as populated the earth. Some dinosaurs that lived during the Jurassic period were Allosaurus, Brachiosaurus, Diplodocus, and Stegosaurus.
Cretaceous
The cretaceous period was from 146-65 million years ago. During this period continents drifted further apart. By the end of the period, continents were just about the same position they are today.
Dinosaurs such as Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Velociraptor, and Giganotosaurus roamed the earth. Giganotosaurus lived at the end of the cretaceous period and not at the same time as the Tyrannosaurus.
Meet Giganotosaurus
Giganotosaurus was a large meat-eating dinosaur that lived in the late cretaceous period. Giganotosaurus is pronounced Jye-gah-NO-toe-SORE-US. The name means lizard-like giant of the earth or Great Southern Lizard.
Giganotosaurus were members of the carcharodontosauridae family. Dinosaurs in the carcharodontosauridae group were known as shark-toothed dinosaurs.
Where did Giganotosaurus live?
Scientists who study dinosaur fossils are called paleontologists.
Giganotosaurus lived 97 million years ago during the late cretaceous period. Paleontologists discovered Giganotosaurus fossils below the equator, in the Patagonian region of Argentina. The first Giganotosaurus fossils were first discovered in 1993. In 1998 a second Giganotosaurus fossil was found. Scientists have only discovered about 70% of the skeleton.
What did Giganotosaurus look like?
Scientists can only estimate how a Giganotosaurus looked because a full skeleton has never been found.
Giganotosaurus was very large, even larger than the T-Rex. They were 43 ft tall and weighed nearly 30,000 pounds! That is one big lizard.
A Giganotosaurus tail was 20 ft long. That is able the average length of a Great White shark. Can you believe that this dinosaur’s tail was as long as a shark?
Giganotosaurus’ tail needed to be that long to help keep its balance. Why?
Giganotosaurus had very large heads. Estimated to be the size of a 6 ft man. They had very short arms with razor-sharp claws. Giganotosaurus 20-foot tail helped keep its body from falling over.
Giganotosaurus had very muscular, powerful legs. They were very fast runners. They were able to run more than 30 miles per hour.
Giganotosaurus also roamed around as a biped. Bipeds are animals that walk around on two feet.
They had an 8 inch long knife-like razor-sharp teeth.
What did Giganotosaurus Eat?
Giganotosaurus were carnivores. Carnivores are animals that eat meat. Giganotosaurus ate other dinosaurs.
These massive predators hunted in packs. Giganotosaurus had an excellent sense of smell. They would use their sense of smell to follow scent tracks left behind by other dinosaurs. These dinosaurs would follow these scents to find their prey. They hunted in packs so that they would have the ability to take down larger plant-eating dinosaurs.
Habitat
Giganotosaurus fossils were discovered in Argentina. They lived in rain forests. These dinosaurs lived near water and trees.
Research
Scientists are still researching Giganotosaurs to find out more about them. Hopefully, in the future, scientists will discover more Giganotosaurs fossils and find out more about these great creatures that once walked the earth.