Yes, and this is not a technicality. Birds descend from small feathered theropods and sit inside the dinosaur family tree, which makes them the one dinosaur lineage that survived the extinction sixty-six million years ago. They are kept on the bird page here purely because that is where people expect to find them.

Why do some dinosaurs look different from the films?

Because the science moved on. Many theropods are now known to have had feathers, postures have been reconstructed, and several familiar animals have been reinterpreted. The reconstructions used here follow current published work rather than film design.

Is the pterodactyl a dinosaur?

No. Pterosaurs were flying reptiles closely related to dinosaurs but on their own branch. The same goes for the big marine reptiles like plesiosaurs and mosasaurs.

Random Dinosaur Generator

180 dinosaur genera with fossil photos, reconstructions and three facts each.

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Prehistoric

Photo: ScottRobertAnselmo · CC BY-SA 3.0

DinosaurExtinctcarnivore

Tyrannosaurus

Tyrannosaurus was a massive meat-eating dinosaur that ruled western North America around 69 to 66 million years ago. Unlike many of its relatives, this apex predator roamed across a vast territory on the ancient island continent of Laramidia. Its fossils tell us it was among the very last dinosaurs before the great extinction event.

Tyrannosaurus rex is the most well-studied member of its dinosaur family.
It lived during the late Cretaceous period's Maastrichtian age.
Some fossils suggest tyrannosaurs may have appeared earlier in the Campanian age.

ForestGrasslandNorth America

About this dinosaur generator

This random dinosaur generator draws on around a hundred and eighty dinosaur genera and gives you the name, a fossil photograph or scientific reconstruction, and three facts. You will get Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops eventually, but you are more likely to meet something like Amargasaurus or Microraptor first.

Dinosaurs are grouped by genus rather than species here, which matches how they are usually discussed — "Stegosaurus" is a genus containing several species, and outside palaeontology almost nobody works at the species level.

Images are fossil photographs and published reconstructions rather than film creatures, so what you see reflects the current scientific picture, feathers included.

What people use it for

Rated 5 out of 5
I put this on the board every Monday and the class has to write six sentences about whatever animal comes up. The photo does most of the work — they argue about it before I have finished reading the name out.
Maya Ellison
Year 4 teacher
Rated 5 out of 5
I use the ocean filter to stock a coastline in about thirty seconds. Getting the conservation status and the habitat alongside the name means I can describe the thing properly instead of inventing details.
Daniel Weiss
Tabletop game master
Rated 5 out of 5
Daily drawing prompts. Most animal randomisers just give you a word, which is useless when you need reference — here I get a photograph I can actually work from, and it keeps handing me species I would never have picked.
Priya Raman
Illustrator
Rated 5 out of 5
The bird generator is my flashcard deck now. I cover the name, look at the photo and try to call it before scrolling. Two hundred-odd species is enough that it stays hard.
Tomas Lindqvist
Birder
Rated 5 out of 5
My six-year-old asks for "one more animal" about forty times a night. The facts are short enough that she remembers them and repeats them at dinner, which was not something I expected from a random button.
Elise Moreau
Parent