Films, old museum models and childhood books have left us with a head full of dinosaur 'facts' that turn out to be wrong. Here are ten of the most common myths - phrased as the questions people actually ask - with the honest answer to each. Get these right and you will win more quiz rounds than you lose.
Were all dinosaurs enormous?
The word 'dinosaur' brings to mind towering giants, and the biggest sauropods really were the largest land animals ever. But that is a selective memory shaped by museums, which love to show off the show-stoppers.
No. Many dinosaurs were small - some, like Compsognathus, were around the size of a chicken or a house cat. Dinosaurs came in a huge range of sizes.
Are dinosaurs really extinct?
We usually talk about dinosaurs as a lost world, gone forever 66 million years ago. That is true of the giants - but not of the whole group.
Not entirely. Birds are living dinosaurs - the direct descendants of small feathered theropods. When you feed pigeons, you are feeding dinosaurs.
Was Velociraptor as big as in the films?
The 'raptors' from blockbuster films are man-sized, scaly and terrifying, and that image is burned into popular culture.
No. The real Velociraptor was roughly the size of a turkey and covered in feathers. The film creatures are closer in size to a relative, Deinonychus.
Did humans and dinosaurs ever live together?
Cartoons and theme parks love to put cave-people and dinosaurs in the same scene, and it makes for a fun image.
No. Non-bird dinosaurs died out about 66 million years ago, tens of millions of years before humans appeared. The two never overlapped.
Was Brontosaurus a name that never really existed?
For decades, science teachers insisted Brontosaurus was a mistake - the same animal as Apatosaurus - and that the beloved name should be dropped.
It is complicated. A 2015 study argued Brontosaurus is different enough from Apatosaurus to be its own genus again, so the famous name is back in use.
Were dinosaurs slow, stupid reptiles?
Older books pictured dinosaurs as sluggish, cold-blooded and dim - lizards that could barely drag their tails around.
Mostly no. Many dinosaurs were active and fast, with metabolisms unlike modern reptiles. Some, like the troodontids, had relatively large brains for their size.
Could T. rex only see things that moved?
One of the most famous movie lines claims a T. rex loses sight of you if you stand perfectly still.
No - that is pure fiction. Studies of its skull suggest T. rex had large eyes, good depth perception and sharp vision. Standing still would not have saved you.
Was Pteranodon a dinosaur?
The winged reptiles gliding over every prehistoric scene are so tied to the era that almost everyone calls them dinosaurs.
No. Pteranodon and its relatives were pterosaurs - flying reptiles that lived alongside dinosaurs but belong to a separate group entirely.
Do we actually know what colour dinosaurs were?
For most of history, artists simply guessed - painting dinosaurs in dull greens and greys like oversized lizards.
For some, yes. Fossilised pigment structures called melanosomes have let scientists reconstruct real colours and patterns for a handful of feathered species.
Did one asteroid wipe out every dinosaur in a day?
The story is usually told as a single flash: an asteroid hits, and the dinosaurs vanish overnight.
Not in a day, and not all of them. The asteroid impact 66 million years ago triggered long-lasting climate collapse - and the bird lineage of dinosaurs survived it.
Myths make the best quiz questions precisely because so many people get them wrong. Now that you know the real answers, put them to the test in the dedicated dinosaur quiz below.
Five questions. Your turn.
Five questions, four choices, one fresh test of what you just read.
Question 1 of 5
Ready for another round? Continue to the game below.