Some people think that dinosaur bones weren’t discovered until the eighteenth century, but people have been finding the bones of dinosaurs for thousands of years. Back in those times, they either attributed the bones to mythical monsters or created mythical monsters to explain their existence. For instance, in ancient China, they were thought to be the bones of dragons. The Romans and Greeks thought they were giants, ogres and griffons.

Dinosaurs wouldn’t “officially” be discovered until the late seventeenth century in England by an English naturalist named Reverend Plot—although he didn’t know what is was when he found it at the time. He instead thought it was the thigh bone of a giant. It wasn’t until 1824 that it was named Megalosaurus by William Buckland. Thereby officially launching modern study of dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs are a pretty varied group that lived all over the globe. They lived on each of the seven continents and each had their own specific biology. There were thousands upon thousands of different species of dinosaurs. Just take a look at birds. They are now considered modern dinosaurs and there are over ten thousand species’ of them. Imagine just how many have existed throughout history.

There were herbivorous and carnivorous dinosaurs. There were ones that walked on two legs and ones that walked on four. There were really small ones and really large ones. Dinosaurs of every shape and size. Some of which we haven’t discovered yet. Every few weeks or months, paleontologists are finding new specimens—thereby increasing our knowledge of these creatures.

While you would think that the name “dinosaur” would yield an answer to the question, “what is a dinosaur?” I assure you it does not. That’s because “dinosaur” means “terrible lizard” and one of the first things we’re taught about dinosaurs is that they aren’t lizards. This was accepted in earlier times, but now we know that they are far closer related to modern-day birds than any modern reptiles.

As you can see, in order to answer the question “what is a dinosaur?”, you really have to look across many different disciplines. Everything from history to biology. And maybe just a little bit of imagination. After all, they were some of the most magnificent creatures ever to walk the planet.