Hey kids! Are you interested in learning about dinosaurs? If so, you’re in luck because today we’re going to talk about Albertosaurus, a type of carnivorous dinosaur that lived about 70 million years ago.
Now, you can find these dinosaurs in the following coloring pages. There are albertosaurus coloring pages free printable you can get below. Happy coloring.
Albertosaurus was a theropod dinosaur, which means it had two legs and walked on its toes. It was a medium-sized dinosaur, about 26-33 feet long and weighing around 2-3 tons. It had a long, narrow skull with sharp, serrated teeth that it used to catch and eat its prey.
Unlike some of the larger carnivorous dinosaurs, like Tyrannosaurus rex, Albertosaurus was not a very good runner. However, it was still a formidable predator and is thought to have hunted in packs.
Albertosaurus Coloring Pages
Its name means “Alberta lizard” and comes from where they lived, in what is now known as the province of Alberta in cold Canada.
Scientists believe that this dinosaur was related to the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Like the latter, it walked on two legs, had powerful jaws and large claws, and was, therefore, a very dangerous predator.
More than 20 fossils of Albertosaurus have been discovered, so there is a lot of information about them, allowing scientists to know a little more about their diet, physical characteristics, habits, and behavior.
The first to find a fossil of Albertosaurus was Joseph Burr Tyrrel in 1884, who found a skull in the vicinity of the Red Deer River in Canada and later located the rest of the body in the same place.
After this, in 1889, he discovered a smaller skull than the first one, along with other bones. Since then, several other fossils have been found, which has allowed us to have vast knowledge about the anatomy of this dinosaur.
One element that stands out is that many of the Albertosaurus fossils that have been discovered were found relatively close to each other, which has led us to believe that they lived in a group with others of the same species.
How big was Albertosaurus? Albertosaurus had a large size, similar to Tyrannosaurus, although a little smaller, with an approximate length of about 10 meters. The weight of Albertosaurus could be around 2 tons.
It walked on its two hind legs, which were much larger than the front ones, and the hind limbs had four toes while the front ones had only two.
One characteristic that stands out about the toes of the hind leg is that one of the toes was relatively small compared to the rest, so it was not very useful, while it supported all its weight on the other three toes.
Scientists affirm that due to its anatomical structure, Albertosaurus was one of the fastest dinosaurs of its time, reaching 50 kilometers per hour, which is quite remarkable, given its large size.
The neck of Albertosaurus was short, curved, and had the shape of the letter “S”, with an approximate length of 1 meter. Additionally, it moved its head, neck, and tail in a balanced way when it walked.
Its skulls were massive and had small bony ridges, called fenestrae, which were located in the temporal area of its head and may have been brightly colored to attract a potential mate.
Additionally, these bony ridges were empty to reduce the weight of the large and heavy head of Albertosaurus.
Another interesting fact about these fenestrae is that they were the place where some of the head muscles were joined. They were also located in the upper region of the eye sockets, giving them a terrifying appearance.
How many teeth did Albertosaurus have? As for the teeth of Albertosaurus, we know that it had more than 70 inside its jaw and that they were huge and sharp.
This characteristic distinguishes them from the rest of the dinosaurs of their family since most of them had much fewer teeth and were smaller in size.
Scientists also affirm that the bite of this giant was mighty, reaching a force of more than 3000 Newton.