Answer: Some dinosaurs ate lizards, turtles, eggs, or early mammals. Some hunted
other dinosaurs or scavenged dead animals. Most, however, ate plants (but
not grass, which hadn't evolved yet). Rocks that contains dinosaur bones
also contain fossil pollen and spores that indicate hundreds to thousands
of types of plants existed during the Mesozoic Era. Many of these plants had
edible leaves, including evergreen conifers (pine trees, redwoods, and their
relatives), ferns, mosses, horsetail rushes, cycads, ginkos, and in the latter
part of the dinosaur age flowering (fruiting) plants. Although the exact time of
origin for flowering plants is still uncertain, the last of the dinosaurs
certainly had fruit available to eat.
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U.S. Department of the Interior |
U.S. Geological Survey