Wanted: Oscar Obsidian - Auckland Museum

Activity
Sheet
ACTIVITY SHEET
DESIGN YOUR OWN DINOSAUR
Most dinosaurs are named by using Latin and Greek words describing special things about the creature.
For example a dinosaur discovered in the Antarctic in 1991 had Cryo- (meaning icy-cold) attached to its
name, Cryo-lopho-saurus means cold crested lizard and it is on display at the Auckland Museum.
Usually Saur or Saurus is added to the end to indicate its ancient lizard-like skeleton.
Your Task:
You have just discovered a totally new dinosaur. From the prefixes (word-beginnings) and suffixes (word
endings) below you can choose a good descriptive name for your discovery and in the box draw a
detailed sketch showing your new type of dinosaur.
Prefixes
A- without
Lepto- weak
Di- two
Auri- ear
Derma- skin
Alti- high
Dino- terrible
Coelo- hollow
Pachy- thick
Diplo- double
Odon- tooth
Rhino- nose
Tetra- four
Necto- swimming
Name of the dinosaur:________________________ Discovered by:________________________
Date:_________ Discovered in:________________________
This discovery was named _______________________________________________ because of its
________________________________________________________________________________.
It lived in (habitat)_________________________________________________________________.
It ate ________________________________________ as you can tell by the shape of its teeth and
body. It defended itself by__________________________________________________________.
It laid eggs in _____________________________________________________. Young dinosaurs
were____________________________________________________________________________.
Auckland Museum 29
Suffixes
saurus- lizard
mimus- imitate
pteryx- wing
raptor- thief
spinax- thorn
ichthys- fish
saur or saurus can be put at the
very end.e.g. Di-pteryx-saurus
(two winged lizard).