James Baquet

    Becky is chatting with her classmate Lily in the common room of their dorm.

    Becky: Hi, Lily. What are you reading?

    Lily: It’s a book about dinosaurs. They’re really cool!

    Becky: I like them, but I don’t know much about them. What have you learned?

    Lily: Well, first, I love the word “dinosaur” itself. Do you know what it means?

    Becky: No, I don’t.

    Lily: It means something like “terrible (or frightening) lizard.”

    Becky: Nice! I know a lot of people who are afraid of lizards, but I love them.

    Lily: Just imagine if you saw a lizard that was 40 feet long and had huge teeth!

    Becky: Okay, I might not love that so much. Which one are you talking about?

    Lily: Tyrannosaurus Rex, sometimes called “T. Rex” for short.

    Becky: Oh, I know that one! It’s famous!

    Lily: And fearsome! Its name means “king of the tyrant lizards.”

    Becky: A tyrant is a cruel ruler.

    Lily: Right. So this one was the scary boss of everyone!

    Becky: What about the one with three horns on its nose? Isn’t it fierce, too?

    Lily: No, actually, it was a plant-eater. The horns were for defense.

    Becky: What’s it called?

    Lily: “Triceratops.” The name means something like “face with three horns.”

    Becky: It looks a little like a modern rhinoceros.

    Lily: That’s the modern African animal with one horn, right?

    Becky: Yes. The two dinosaurs you’ve mentioned are really popular. What else?

    Lily: Lots of kids know the name “brontosaurus,” but today it’s usually called “apatosaurus.”

    Becky: I never heard the second name. But I think “brontosaurus” means “thunder lizard,” right?

    Lily: Yeah! It’s a cool name. Stegosaurus is also well known.

    Becky: What does it look like?

    Lily: It has big plates standing up on its back, and huge spikes on its tail.

    Becky: Oh, yeah, I’ve seen that!

    Lily: The name means “roofed lizard.” When it was first found, scientists thought the plates lay flat on its back, like a covering.

    Becky: Funny!

    Lily: Sometimes they’re still not sure how dinosaurs’ parts go together.

    Becky: Yeah, I guess when you find fossils, they’re not all neatly arranged. Tell me about one more — the one from the movie “Jurassic Park.”

    Lily: Oh, you must mean velociraptor. It wasn’t so well known before that movie.

    Becky: It was really cool!

    Lily: Well, actually, what we saw in the movie was a different dinosaur, called a deinonychus. True velociraptors were much smaller, about the size of a big chicken.

    Becky: That’s too bad! What does the name mean?

    Lily: “Fast robber.” That second part, “raptor,” is used to name birds who eat other animals, like hawks and eagles.