Fifth Grade
Worksheets
Oviraptor, a Misnamed Dinosaur?
Oviraptor (OH-vee-RAP-tor) was a small dinosaur. It lived from about 88 million to 70 million years ago during the Cretaceous period. Oviraptor was only about three feet tall and weighed less than 80 pounds. It was bipedal, meaning that it walked on two feet. It had a bony crest on top of its head and above its nose. Its hands had three long fingers. The fingers had long, sharp, curved claws. It had a long tail. It most likely had feathers.
Oviraptor means egg thief. But was this dinosaur really an egg thief? In the 1920s when the first Oviraptor fossil was found, a nest of fossilized dinosaur eggs was found near it. Scientists thought the small dinosaur had been stealing another dinosaur's eggs when it died. They named it for this trait. Many years later, another Oviraptor fossil was found. This one was sitting on a nest of eggs. Scientists proved these were Oviraptor eggs. This dinosaur .....
