Piecing Together the Stroy of Dinosaurs from Fossils

1. What are fossils?

• dinosaurs that were once thought to steal eggs out of nests

• feathers that the Citipati dinosaur may have had on its arms

• remains of ancient life that are usually buried in rock

• s-shaped necks and other similarities between birds and dinosaurs

2. To organize this text, the author has divided it into sections. In the section called "Egg Thief or Egg Protector?" what does the author compare to Citipati?

• Tyrannosaurus rex

• living birds

• leaf prints

• fossil eggs

3. Birds are theropod dinosaurs.What is one piece of evidence that supports this theory?

• Tyrannosaurus rex and Citipati were theropod dinosaurs.

• Some extinct theropod dinosaurs laid eggs, just like birds do today.

• Birds have feathers, but not all extinct theropod dinosaurs had feathers.

• Scientists once thought that some theropod dinosaurs were egg thieves.

4. The author describes Citipati dinosaurs as “caring parents.” What evidence supports this description?

• Citipati walked on two feet with their legs directly underneath them.

• Citipati and Oviraptors are known as "oviraptorids," which means "egg thieves."

• Citipati laid eggs, had three-toed feet with claws, an s-shaped neck, and hollow bones.

• An adult Citipati was discovered sitting on a nest with its arms spread to protect the eggs.

5. What is the main idea of this text?

• Fossils can form from teeth, shells, bones, footprints, leaf prints, and eggs.

• In 1923, a team of scientists from the American Museum of Natural History made a surprising discovery in the Gobi Desert.

• Theropods are a group of dinosaurs that included Tyrannosaurus rex, Velociraptor, and Citipati.

• Discovering fossils of extinct dinosaurs helped scientists figure out that birds are a kind of dinosaur.

6. Read these sentences from the text. -- “Scientists compare fossils from different time periods to investigate how life on Earth has changed over time.“Think of fossils like puzzle pieces. The more pieces you have, the easier it is to put them together and tell what the whole picture looks like. And sometimes when you find and add new pieces, the picture looks very different from how you thought it would be.” -- Why might the author have compared fossils to puzzle pieces?

• to help readers understand how scientists use fossils

• to prove that being a scientist is hard work

• to argue that studying fossils is more fun than putting together puzzles

• to explain why some puzzles are more difficult than others

7. Read these sentences from the text. -- “Scientists discovered that like birds, theropods laid eggs. And they walked on two feet with their legs directly underneath them.” -- What or whom does "they" refer to here?

• "Scientists"

• "birds"

• "theropods"

• "eggs"

The leader of the expedition guessed the dinosaur had been stealing the eggs from the nest.

• True

• False

The adult Citipatifossil was brooding over a nest “the same way birds do: with its arms spread out to protect the eggs.

• True

• False

By “piecing together” the new fossils with the old ones, scientists realized that the earlier conclusion about “oviraptorids” had been wrong. These dinosaurs didn’t steal eggs after all. They protected eggs by sitting on nests with their arms spread out.

• True

• False