Classification of the

dinosaurs

The dinosaur classification is used in order to see how closely they are related to each other. The largest unit of classification is order and the smallest is species. In between there are suborder, infraorder, family and genus.

When we talk about dinosaurs, we usually don’t use the species names, because there is often not enough information to decide how to divide them.

Notice that most dinosaur names are taken from Greek and Latin. These are scientific names, and they describe the animals. For example, Tyrannosaurus rex means “tyrant reptile king”, and Brontosaurus means “thunder reptile”.

The two large orders of dinosaurs are the Saurischia and the Ornithischia. Saurischia means "Lizard hip" and Ornithischia means "Bird hip".

In the hip region of the dinosaurs' skeletons there are three bones. These indicate the animals' orders:

• Saurischian (lizard hip) dinosaurs had all of the three bones pointing in a different direction
• Ornithischian (bird hip) dinosaurs had the two lower bones pointing backward.

On the following pages you'll find out about a lot of dinosaurs. Some names of dinosaurs are links. Click tham and you'll see the picture.

Here is the systemathic classification of the dinosaurs. The names in bold mean the order name, and in italic mean the suborder name. Click on the links to learn more about any order, suborder, infraorder and family.

DINOSAURS: