25 Facts Learned in School That Are No Longer True

You don’t want your children to believe you ‘re a dinosaur — bring your knowledge up to date with these new facts.

Dinosaurs are not extinct

Kindergartners will laugh at you if they find out that you still believe that dinosaurs died 65 million years ago. They ‘ll point out the blue jays, pigeons, hummingbirds, and seagulls flying around your neighborhood with their dinosaur genes. As paleontologist Steve Brusatte, author of the book The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, told Reader’s Digest, “Today’s birds evolved from dinosaurs, which makes them every bit as much of a dinosaur as T. rex or Triceratops.”

Dinosaurs don’t look like big lizards

We already know that a lot of dinosaurs had fluffy, colorful feathers! Paleontologists have discovered well-preserved fossils showing some dinosaurs with feathers all over their bodies, and others with tufts of downy fluff. They have also been able to classify colors by observing tiny structures called melanosomes in fossilized feathers. “It’s one of the most amazing things that’s happened in my lifetime as a scientist,” Brusatte says.