How do we know what ancient creatures looked like?  With time and patience,  scientists have taken collections of bones and solved a puzzle to reconstruct ancient creatures.

In this activity students become paleontologists as they put bones together.

This activity appears in the book Adventures in Paleontology: 36 Classroom Fossil Activities by Thor A. Hansen and Irwin L. Slesnick and illustrated by D. W. Miller.

For more information on this activity, go to The Great Fossil Find at ENSI.

Imagine the year is 1826 and you are the German paleontologist, August Goldfuss.  You have just discovered bunch of bones in a limestone quarry.  You goal is to figure out how these bones are put together.

Materials: Scissors, tape, construction paper, glue. 

Directions: Print out drawing and cut out the various bones.

Use glue and tape to attach the “bones” to paper in a way that you imagine this ancient animal must have looked.

  

 

Hint - Don't Peek Until You've Tried

 

Scaphognathus crassirostris was a pterosaur that lived in Germany during the Late Jurassic. It had a wingspan of about one meter. 

 

 

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