Geol 107: Geology Goes to Holywood » Fall 2019 » How to Build a Dinosaur Movie Quiz

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Question #1
The movie How to Build a Dinosaur shows the museum staff sitting in the museum prep lab discussing how hard it is to mount fossils into skeletons for display. The difficulty is due to the material that makes up the fossils. So...
A.   Plastic, which is why people say that dinosaurs are a conspiracy
B.   Solid rock, which is why they are so heavy
C.   Bone, which is why they are so fragile
Question #2
When dissecting the ostrich, the narrator becomes aware of "scars" that you can find on the bones of dinosaurs. What are the "scars" on dinosaur bones?
A.   Places where the dinosaur broke its bones while growing up
B.   Places where muscles and ligaments attach to the bone
C.   Places where another animal bit the dinosaur
D.   Places where sloppy paleontologists damaged bones while excavating them
Question #3
How do scientists know the color of a dinosaur's feathers?
A.   Trick question: Feathers are not preserved in fossils
B.   They discovered fossilized feathers that preserved the shape of pigment chemicals in the feathers. In modern birds, different shape chemical pigments give different colors.
C.   They discovered fragments of actual dinosaur feathers frozen in the ice of a glacier in Switzerland in 1998.
D.   They discovered fossilized feathers in Montana in 2008 that were so well preserved that you could actually see the color.
Question #4
According to this movie, how fast could an average T-rex run?
A.   About 90 miles per hour -- faster than any land animal alive today
B.   About 15 miles an hour -- the same as an average human
C.   About 40 miles per hour -- the same as a race horse
D.   About 60 miles per hour -- cheetah speed
Question #5
Some dinosaurs had striped colors
A.   FALSE
B.   There is no way to tell a dinosaur's color. All we get is their fossil bones.
C.   TRUE
Question #6
Why do the scientists think that T-rex ate the duck-billed Edmontosaurus?
A.   They discovered the skeleton of a duck-billed dinosaur inside the stomach area of a T-rex
B.   They found duck-billed dinosaur bones in the nest next to the eggs of a T-rex
C.   They found bite marks on the duck-billed dinosaur bones that match the shape of T-rex's teeth
Question #7
Even though they have the word fruit in their name, scientists think fruitadens were omnivores (ate plants and animals). What evidence do they have?
A.   They have both large mashing teeth for plants and sharp teeth for slicing through insects and worms
B.   They found fossil plant leaves and worms inside the stomach area of fruitaden skeletons
C.   Small animals require the high energy content of animal protein such as insects and worms
Question #8
What's one of the pieces of evidence that the T-rex skeleton found was of a younger animal?
A.   Some bones fuse together as animals age. This dinosaur had unfused bones.
B.   Bones tend to grow brittle as animals age. This dinosaur had strong bones.
C.   At birth, dinosaurs are missing certain bones. This dinosaur was still missing those bones.
D.   Bones tend to start out more flexible. This dinosaur had flexible bones.

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