Top 10 countdown of dinosaur questions...
Question #7
How many dinosaurs were there?
There are over 500 dinosaur varieties that have been found, named and scientifically accepted.
There are about an additional 100 dinosaurs that are dubious. These dinosaurs, usually represented by very incomplete fossils, may actually be examples of other already named genera.
There are also almost 100 newly-discovered dinosaurs whose names have not been through the formal naming process.This process is done by the ICZN (the International Committee on Zoological Nomenclature) in which it is decided that a specimen represents a new genus.
Then the really tricky part has to be considered. People have only probably found only a small fraction of all the dinosaurs that ever existed. There are a lot more dinosaurs that people are finding all the time. Also, there are probably many, many types of dinosaurs that didn't fossilize at all and are lost forever. The actual number of dinosaurs that lived is unknown. The population numbers of the dinosaurs (that is, how many individuals of each genus existed) are also unknown.
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