What did dinosaurs eat? Some dinosaurs feasted on smaller lizards, eggs or even early mammals. Others hunted other dinosaurs as prey, or scavenged the remains of dead animals. Most dinosaurs, though, ate plants.
Research suggests more than 180 dinosaurs preferred a plant-based diet, but it’s quite hard to put a precise number on it, says Paul Barrett, a paleontology researcher at the Natural History Museum in London.
“There's a little bit of a gray area because some of the dinosaurs that we think mainly ate plants might have actually been omnivores,” Barrett adds.
Plant-Eating Dinosaurs
Most plant-eating dinosaurs belong to two categories: There were ornithischian — which means "bird-hipped" — dinosaurs, like Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Iguanodons and ankylosaurs, and sauropodomorph dinosaurs, which included long-necked dinos like Diplodocus, Brachiosaurus and Brontosaurus.
