Perhaps, archaeologists were shocked when they found during excavations huge dinosaur bones. Now we know that many dinosaurs were harmless giant animals that lived peacefully in the woods, eating grass. Some dinosaurs were huge, with an entire tennis court, and the other - a little like a chicken. In some skin was smooth, and the others - scaly, and that at all horny armor that protects the body. In addition, some dinosaurs had horns or spikes. We are about 600 species of dinosaurs. Dinosaurs lived on almost all the continents of the Earth. But most of all evidence of their existence is found in America and Asia. English scientist Richard Owen (1804 - 1892) found a large number of huge bones. Beasts, skeletons, which he found to provide it is very scary, and he called them "terrible lizards" or dinosaurs. Since then, they are called. It is believed that dinosaurs lived in the Mesozoic (ie average) age. The Mesozoic era began 225 million years ago and ended 65 million years ago. During this period, changes the size of the continental part of the Earth and formed the continents.