Dinosaur word search

This is the theme for anyone who knows their triceratops from their stegosaurus. Alongside the famous names you will find the words of a fossil dig: bone, skull, claw, footprint, amber, excavation and the science of paleontology itself.

The word dinosaur means "terrible lizard," a name coined by the British scientist Richard Owen in 1842, and Tyrannosaurus rex means "tyrant lizard king." Not every prehistoric giant was a dinosaur, though: the flying pterodactyl was a pterosaur, a close cousin. And dinosaurs never fully disappeared, since scientists consider birds their living descendants. Most of the others died out about 66 million years ago, after a huge asteroid struck the Earth.

Children who love dinosaurs often know these long names better than adults do, which makes this a fun theme to play together, with the child as the expert.

Play tip: the long names are built from a few repeating parts. Many end in -SAURUS, and TRICERATOPS and PROTOCERATOPS share -CERATOPS, so start from the unusual beginning of a name, such as the BRACH of BRACHIOSAURUS or the VELOC of VELOCIRAPTOR. Names with 13 letters are too long for the smaller grids and appear only on the expert level.