Dinosaur Files

Dinosaurs?

how do people know that a so and so type of dinosaur was indiginous to a certain type of geographical setting, i.e. swamp? like how can paleontologists make these claims, or are they more inferred facts?

Public Comments

1. because they compare the siting of the plant fossils to the dinosaurs and get a virtual site of their habitat
2. Well, if the fossils were found along side of fossils containing swamp plants, and are from an age where the geology of that particular area was known to be a swamp, then it is a pretty darned good bet that the critter lived in the swamp.
3. Usually the remains of dinosaurs are found with other fossilized remnants such as plant and insect types. Given those fossils, and the geological areas in which they're found, it's not really that difficult to infer the geographical area that the dinosaur lived in.
4. When fossils of multiple individuals belonging to a single species are dug up on one site, it's assumed that that particular species is indiginous to the area where the fossils were found.