Dinosaurs & Prehistoric Life · Unit 6
Eggs, Nests and Growing Up
Dinosaur eggs, nests, babies and family life
Nesting sites changed how dinosaurs were understood. Eggs arranged in deliberate clutches, and adults found on top of them, are evidence of behaviour rather than anatomy.
The unit covers dinosaur eggs, nests and nesting colonies, parental care, how fast the young grew, and the evidence for living in groups.
This unit breaks down into 18 short steps and 108 questions, starting at difficulty 1 and building to 3. Below you can see exactly what it covers, how the path is structured, and worked examples with explanations.
- Steps
- 18
- Questions
- 108
- Difficulty
- 1-3
What this unit covers
- Living in Groups
- Nests and Colonies
- Dinosaur Eggs
- Dinosaur Parents
- Growing Up Fast
Where this fits
Follows Famous Dinosaurs. Dinosaur Biology covers growth rates in more detail.
Where people slip
Oviraptor was named as an egg thief and was almost certainly brooding its own clutch. The name stuck by the rules of priority even after the interpretation was overturned.
How the unit is structured
Eggs, Nests and Growing Up runs as 18 short steps that unlock in order. 13 are practice rounds and 5 are challenge rounds that pull together everything before them. Questions start at difficulty 1 and climb to 3 as you progress.
Challenge rounds
Example questions
30 real questions from this unit, with the answer and the reason behind it, grouped by what they practise. There are 108 in the unit altogether.
Dinosaur Eggs
- Multiple choiceLevel 1
1. Compared with the adult, how big were even the largest dinosaur eggs?
- Very small compared with the adultcorrect
- Bigger than the adult
- The same size as the adult
- About half the adult's size
Even the biggest eggs were small next to a full-grown sauropod, because shells cannot be too thick.
- Picture questionLevel 1
2. 🥚 Which stage of a dinosaur's life does this picture stand for?
- The eggcorrect
- Old age
- Hunting
- Migration
An egg is where every dinosaur life began.
- True or falseLevel 1
3. Dinosaur eggs came in different shapes, from round to long and thin.
Answer: True
True. Egg shape often matches the dinosaur group that laid it.
- Fact or fibLevel 2
4. Fossil dinosaur eggs have been found on many continents.
Answer: True
True. Eggs and eggshell fragments are found worldwide.
- Fill the blankLevel 2
5. A group of eggs laid together in one nest is called a ____.
- clutchcorrect
- cluster of bones
- colony
- crowd
A clutch is the set of eggs laid at one time.
- Choose all that applyLevel 3
6. Which egg shapes are known from dinosaurs? Pick all that apply.
- Nearly sphericalcorrect
- Long and narrowcorrect
- Ovalcorrect
- Cube-shaped
Nearly spherical, elongated and oval eggs are all known.
Dinosaur Parents
- Fact or fibLevel 1
7. Oviraptor was named egg thief because of a mistake by early scientists.
Answer: True
True. Its nest was wrongly assumed to belong to another dinosaur.
- True or falseLevel 1
8. Some dinosaurs sat on their nests much as birds do today.
Answer: True
True. Fossils preserve adults crouched over clutches.
- Choose all that applyLevel 2
9. Which behaviours are supported by fossil evidence? Pick all that apply.
- Building nestscorrect
- Sitting on eggscorrect
- Feeding young in the nestcorrect
- Teaching young to read
Nest building, brooding and feeding young in the nest are all indicated by fossils.
- Multiple choiceLevel 2
10. What did the discovery of Oviraptor sitting on a nest finally show?
- It was sitting on its own eggscorrect
- It was eating the eggs
- It was building a burrow
- It was sleeping by accident
It was brooding its own eggs, not stealing them as its name unfairly suggests.
- Type the answerLevel 2
11. What is the word for a parent sitting on eggs to keep them warm?
Answer: brooding
Brooding keeps eggs at the right temperature.
- Sort into groupsLevel 3
12. Sort each strategy as more likely for small or for giant dinosaurs.
Answer: Sitting directly on the clutch = Small dinosaurs; Sheltering eggs with the arms = Small dinosaurs; Burying eggs and leaving them = Giant dinosaurs; Relying on sun and rotting plants for heat = Giant dinosaurs
Body size strongly limits what a parent can do.
Growing Up Fast
- Fact or fibLevel 1
13. Young dinosaurs sometimes looked quite different from adults of the same species.
Answer: True
True. Horns, crests and proportions changed with age.
- Fill the blankLevel 1
14. A young dinosaur is called a ____.
- juvenilecorrect
- fossil
- predator
- herbivore
Juvenile is the term for a young animal that is not yet adult.
- Guess the numberLevel 2
15. Roughly how many years did a Tyrannosaurus take to reach adult size?
Answer: 20 years
Around twenty years, with a rapid growth spurt in the middle.
- Multiple choiceLevel 2
16. How fast did big dinosaurs grow?
- Very fast, reaching adult size in years
- So slowly it took centuries
- They never grew after hatching
- They shrank as they aged
Many grew extremely fast, adding weight quickly to reach adult size in years rather than decades.
- Put in orderLevel 2
17. Put the stages of a dinosaur's life in order.
Answer: Egg -> Hatchling -> Juvenile -> Adult
Egg, hatchling, juvenile, adult.
- Choose all that applyLevel 3
18. Which factors complicate reading fossil growth records? Pick all that apply.
- Inner rings destroyed by remodellingcorrect
- Small or biased samplescorrect
- Uncertain body mass estimatescorrect
- Growth rings being invisible in every species
Bone remodelling, incomplete samples and uncertain mass estimates all add noise.
Living in Groups
- Choose all that applyLevel 1
19. Which clues suggest social behaviour in dinosaurs? Pick all that apply.
- Parallel trackwayscorrect
- Bonebeds of one speciescorrect
- Nesting coloniescorrect
- Fossil nests made of metal
Herd trackways, mass bonebeds and nesting colonies all point that way.
- Build the sentenceLevel 2
20. Build a sentence about dinosaur babies.
Answer: All dinosaurs hatched from eggs
All known dinosaurs hatched from eggs.
- Multiple choiceLevel 2
21. What is a herd?
- A group of animals living togethercorrect
- A single old animal
- A type of nest
- A kind of plant
A herd is a group of animals that live and travel together.
- Fact or fibLevel 3
22. Studying dinosaur reproduction relies heavily on comparison with living birds and crocodilians.
Answer: True
True. They bracket dinosaurs on the family tree, which guides inference.
- Put in orderLevel 3
23. Put the steps of interpreting a bonebed in order.
Answer: Map the bones in place -> Identify the species present -> Work out how they died -> Interpret the behaviour
Map the bones, identify the species, work out how they died, then interpret behaviour.
- Sort into groupsLevel 3
24. Sort each piece of evidence by what it directly records.
Answer: A femur = Body evidence; A skull = Body evidence; A trackway = Behaviour evidence; A nest structure = Behaviour evidence
Bones record bodies, traces record behaviour.
Nests and Colonies
- Multiple choiceLevel 1
25. Where did many dinosaurs lay their eggs?
- In nests dug or scraped into the groundcorrect
- High in tree branches
- Underwater
- Inside caves of ice
They dug or scraped nests in soil and sand.
- True or falseLevel 1
26. Some dinosaurs returned to the same nesting ground year after year.
Answer: True
True. Layers of nests stacked in the same site show repeated visits.
- Choose all that applyLevel 2
27. Which modern animals give useful comparisons for dinosaur nesting? Pick all that apply.
- Crocodilescorrect
- Ostrichescorrect
- Mound-building birdscorrect
- Bats
Crocodiles, ostriches and mound-building megapodes all inform the models.
- Fact or fibLevel 2
28. Fossil nests can show us how dinosaurs behaved, not just what they looked like.
Answer: True
True. Nests are evidence of behaviour.
- Fill the blankLevel 2
29. Some dinosaurs covered their eggs with rotting ____ to keep them warm.
- plantscorrect
- stones
- sand from the sea
- snow
Decaying plants give off heat, as in some modern birds and crocodiles.
- Type the answerLevel 2
30. What is the word for a place where many animals nest together?
Answer: colony
A colony is a group nesting site.
Where these questions come from. Each unit starts as a plan of the concepts it should cover and the difficulty it should span. Questions are written against that plan with AI assistance, then checked by a validator that rejects anything without a single defensible answer, an explanation, or plausible wrong options. How we write questions sets out the whole process, and corrections are fixed in the bank and reach the site and the app the same day.
How you practise
This unit mixes 11 different question formats, so you are recalling and applying rather than recognising the same layout every time.
- Build the sentence
- Choose all that apply
- Fact or fib
- Fill the blank
- Guess the number
- Multiple choice
- Picture question
- Put in order
- Sort into groups
- True or false
- Type the answer
Practise Eggs, Nests and Growing Up
108 questions across 18 steps. Start with step one and crawl at your own pace.
Play this unitRead about Eggs, Nests and Growing Up
Explainers from our blog on what this unit covers. Each one ends with real questions from the bank.
More units in Dinosaurs & Prehistoric Life
- What Is a Dinosaur?What dinosaurs were, when they lived and how we name them
- Famous DinosaursTyrannosaurus, Triceratops, Stegosaurus and the other stars
- Meat Eaters and Plant EatersTeeth, claws, defences and what dinosaurs ate
- Fossils and Fossil HuntingWhat fossils are, how they form and how they are found
- The Age of DinosaursTriassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous, and how deep time works
- Flying and Swimming ReptilesPterosaurs, plesiosaurs and the sea monsters that were not dinosaurs
- The Great ExtinctionThe asteroid, the volcanoes and who survived
- Dinosaurs and BirdsFeathers, Archaeopteryx and the dinosaurs still alive today