Free Printable Dinosaur Crossword

Print a criss-cross dinosaur crossword of names such as Triceratops and Stegosaurus, with its answer key.

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Dinosaur Crossword

Read each clue and write the answer in the squares that start at its number, one letter in each square.

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Word bank

  • Coelophysis
  • Deinonychus
  • Gorgosaurus
  • Kentrosaurus
  • Lambeosaurus
  • T. rex
  • Troodon
  • Utahraptor

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Print gives 2 pages on Letter or A4: the puzzle with its clues, then the answer key. The squares print 8 mm wide. For a PDF, choose Save as PDF in the print window.

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Answer key: Dinosaur Crossword

1DEINONY2CHUSO3TREX4LLAO5UM6TPTBRHAEOYHO7GORGOSAURUSDIAAOSPUNTROU8KENTROSAURUS

Across 1 DEINONYCHUS · 3 TREX · 7 GORGOSAURUS · 8 KENTROSAURUS

Down 2 COELOPHYSIS · 4 LAMBEOSAURUS · 5 UTAHRAPTOR · 6 TROODON

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All 141 clues

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Plant Eaters 28

  • Ankylosaurus Low, wide walking fortress whose name means fused lizard
  • Apatosaurus Massive long-neck whose name means deceptive lizard
  • Barosaurus Long-necked relative of the whip-tailed giant, with an even longer neck
  • Brontosaurus "Thunder lizard" long-neck, a name scientists brought back in 2015
  • Browse Feed on leaves and twigs high in the trees
  • Camarasaurus Blunt-headed long-neck, the most common giant found in the American West
  • Ceratopsian Any horned, beaked dinosaur with a neck shield
  • Diplodocus Slender long-necked giant with a whip-like tail and peg-shaped teeth
  • Gastrolith Stone swallowed so the stomach can grind food
  • Graze Feed on low-growing plants
  • Hadrosaur Any duck-billed dinosaur
  • Herbivore Leaf-and-fern diner, in a scientist's word
  • Herd Dozens of duckbills on the move together
  • Iguanodon Plant eater with a spiked hand, the second dinosaur ever named
  • Kentrosaurus Spiky African cousin of the plate-backed dinosaur
  • Lambeosaurus Duckbill with a hatchet-shaped head ornament
  • Maiasaura Duckbill whose name means good mother lizard
  • Minmi Small armored plant eater named for a crossing in Queensland, Australia
  • Nodosaur Spiky-shouldered armored plant eater that carried no tail weapon
  • Ornithopod Member of the two-legged plant-eating group that includes the duckbills
  • Plateosaurus Early European long-neck that walked on two legs
  • Saltasaurus Small armored long-neck from Argentina
  • Sauropod Any long-necked, long-tailed giant
  • Stegosaurus Its back carried two rows of upright bony plates; its name means roofed lizard
  • Supersaurus Among the longest of all known dinosaurs, found in Colorado
  • Titanosaur Member of the group that includes the heaviest land animals ever
  • Torosaurus Horned plant eater with one of the longest heads of any known land animal
  • Triceratops Three-horned plant eater with a bony neck shield

Meat Eaters 28

  • Allosaurus Big three-fingered hunter that lived about 150 million years ago
  • Ambush Hunting style: lie hidden, then burst out
  • Baryonyx Fish eater from England with a huge claw on each hand
  • Carnivore Flesh eater, in a scientist's word
  • Carnotaurus "Meat-eating bull" with two horns over its eyes and tiny arms
  • Ceratosaurus Hunter with a blade-like horn on its nose
  • Coelophysis Slim, light-boned early hunter found by the hundreds at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico
  • Deinonychus "Terrible claw" hunter whose discovery changed how scientists pictured dinosaurs
  • Dromaeosaur Member of the "running lizard" family of hook-clawed hunters
  • Gallimimus Ostrich-like sprinter whose name means chicken mimic
  • Gorgosaurus "Dreadful lizard" tyrant of Alberta and Montana
  • Megalosaurus First dinosaur ever given a scientific name, in 1824
  • Microraptor Crow-sized glider with flight plumes on its arms and its legs
  • Ornithomimus "Bird mimic": toothless, long-legged runner
  • Oviraptor Beaked, toothless "egg thief" that was really guarding a clutch of its own
  • Predator Animal that lives by catching others
  • Prey The hunted, from a hunter's point of view
  • Scavenger Eater of leftovers: it dines on carcasses it did not kill
  • Spinosaurus Giant fish eater with a tall sail on its back
  • Suchomimus "Crocodile mimic" with a long, narrow muzzle, from Niger
  • Tarbosaurus Asian close cousin of the tyrant king, found in Mongolia
  • Theropod Member of the two-legged group that includes every big meat eater, and birds
  • T. rex Short name of the "tyrant lizard king"
  • Troodon Small, big-eyed hunter whose name means wounding tooth
  • Tyrannosaur Member of the family of big-headed, two-fingered hunters
  • Utahraptor Largest known member of the raptor family, named for a western state
  • Velociraptor Turkey-sized feathered hunter from Mongolia, whose name means swift thief
  • Yutyrannus Feathered tyrant from China, its name partly Mandarin for plume

Dinosaur Bodies 27

  • Armor Bony plates and knobs that shielded the tank-like dinosaurs
  • Beak Toothless, horny front of the mouth for snipping plants
  • Crest Bony head ornament of some duckbills, perhaps used for calling
  • Enamel Hard outer coat of a tooth
  • Feathers Covering found on many small hunters, and on every bird
  • Femur Upper leg bone, the one above the knee
  • Frill Bony shield at the back of a horned dinosaur's head
  • Hide Thick skin
  • Hip Its bone shape sorts dinosaurs into "lizard" and "bird" groups
  • Hollow Like the bones of meat eaters and birds: light, with air inside
  • Jaw Hinged bone that holds the teeth
  • Limb Arm or leg
  • Nostril Opening for air on the muzzle
  • Osteoderm Bony plate that grows within the skin
  • Ribcage Bony basket that guarded the heart and lungs
  • Scales Small plates that covered much dinosaur skin
  • Serrated Notched like a steak knife, as a hunter's teeth were
  • Skeleton All the bones, wired together in a hall
  • Skull Braincase, eye holes and tooth-bearing bones together
  • Snout Front of the face
  • Socket Hole in the head bones where an eye sat
  • Stride Length of one step, measured from track to track
  • Talon Hooked claw of a hunter
  • Thagomizer Set of four tail spikes on a plate-backed dinosaur, a name that began in a cartoon
  • Thumb Digit that was a cone-shaped spike on one early-named plant eater
  • Vertebra One bone of the backbone
  • Wishbone Forked chest bone shared by meat-eating dinosaurs and birds

Fossils and Digs 30

  • Amber Hardened tree resin that can hold a feathered tail or an insect
  • Asteroid Rocky body from space, miles across, blamed for ending the age of dinosaurs
  • Badlands Dry, eroded hills of Montana and Alberta, rich in bones
  • Cast Copy of a bone made by filling a mold
  • Chicxulub Buried Mexican scar left by the impact that ended the age of dinosaurs
  • Chisel Steel tool tapped with a hammer to free a bone
  • Coprolite Fossil dung
  • Crater Round pit blasted out by something falling from space
  • Eggshell Thin, curved fossil fragment left when a baby dinosaur hatched
  • Excavate Dig out carefully
  • Extinction End of a kind of living thing, when the last one dies
  • Geologist Scientist who reads rock layers
  • Imprint Mark pressed into mud by skin or a leaf
  • Iridium Rare metal found worldwide in the thin clay layer from the impact
  • Mineral What slowly replaces bone as it turns to stone
  • Museum Building where mounted giants greet visitors
  • Nest Bowl scraped in the ground for a clutch of eggs
  • Outcrop Bare rock sticking out of a hillside, where a fossil may show
  • Paleontology Science of dinosaur hunters and fossil labs
  • Petrify Turn to stone
  • Plaster White wrap that hardens around a fossil for the trip to the lab
  • Prospect Walk the hills looking for fragments weathering out
  • Quarry Open pit where many bones are dug
  • Replica Lightweight copy of a bone used in a display
  • Sandstone Rock made of cemented grains, a common home of fossils
  • Sediment Mud, silt or sand that buries a body before it can rot
  • Shale Fine, layered rock that splits into sheets
  • Specimen One fossil kept and numbered for study
  • Strata Stacked sheets of rock, read from the bottom up like pages of time
  • Trackway Trail of fossil steps left in ancient mud

Time and the Dinosaur World 28

  • Ancestor Relative from long ago, as small feathered dinosaurs are to birds
  • Archosaur Member of the "ruling reptile" group that holds dinosaurs and their closest kin
  • Avian Having to do with birds, the only dinosaurs alive today
  • Conifer Cone-bearing tree, such as a pine or a monkey puzzle
  • Cretaceous Last and longest of the three dinosaur ages
  • Cycad Palm-like plant with a stout trunk and stiff leaves
  • Epoch Slice of time shorter than a period
  • Era Very long span of time, made up of periods
  • Evolve What a group of living things does as it changes over countless generations
  • Genus Group name written first and capitalized in a scientific name
  • Ginkgo "Living fossil" tree with fan-shaped leaves
  • Gondwana Southern half of the broken supercontinent
  • Hatchling Newly emerged baby, still near the broken shell
  • Horsetail Jointed, rush-like plant of wet ground
  • Ichthyosaur Dolphin-shaped swimmer whose name means fish lizard
  • Jurassic Middle of the three dinosaur ages, time of the great long-necks
  • Juvenile Half-grown youngster
  • Laurasia Northern half of the broken supercontinent
  • Mesozoic Name meaning "middle life" for the whole age of dinosaurs
  • Mosasaur Giant swimming lizard, top hunter of the last dinosaur seas
  • Pangaea Supercontinent that held nearly all land when dinosaurs first appeared
  • Plesiosaur Long-necked, four-flippered swimmer of the dinosaur seas
  • Prehistoric Older than history books; before anyone could write things down
  • Pteranodon Toothless flier with a wingspan of more than 6 meters
  • Pterodactyl Popular name for a flying cousin of the dinosaurs; it means wing finger
  • Pterosaur Flying relative of the dinosaurs, with wings of skin
  • Swamp Wet, tree-filled lowland
  • Triassic First of the three dinosaur ages, when the earliest ones appeared

How this list was compiled: Clues written for this site for elementary classes: plant-eating dinosaurs, meat-eating dinosaurs, dinosaur bodies, fossils and digs, and the time when dinosaurs lived. Every answer is an entry in Wiktionary (en.wiktionary.org), and each fact about a dinosaur, a fossil or a date was checked against English Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org, CC BY-SA 4.0) in October 2026. Science revises what it knows about dinosaurs; clues follow the articles as they stood then. Licence: own work

How it works

This free printable dinosaur crossword is a vocabulary crossword for a dinosaur unit or a museum trip: plant eaters, meat eaters, dinosaur bodies, fossils and the digs that find them, and the three ages when dinosaurs lived.

Read the full guide

Five sets, and the names alone

Dinosaur Names draws only dinosaurs, plant eaters and meat eaters together. Plant Eaters has Triceratops, Diplodocus and Maiasaura. Meat Eaters has T. rex, Velociraptor and Baryonyx. Dinosaur Bodies has Frill, Thagomizer and Osteoderm. Fossils and Digs has Coprolite, Trackway and Iridium. Time and the Dinosaur World has Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous and Pangaea.

What a name clue gives

A meaning, a feature or a place: the "good mother" duckbill, the hunter named for a western state, the first dinosaur ever named.

  • For grades 2 and 3, keep Word bank under the clues checked: the long names are a spelling job.

Questions and answers

Which dinosaurs are in the puzzle?

T. rex, Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Velociraptor, Brontosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Spinosaurus and many more, each clued by a feature, the meaning of its name or the place it was found.

Are pterodactyls dinosaurs?

No. Pterosaurs such as Pteranodon were flying relatives of the dinosaurs, and plesiosaurs and mosasaurs were swimmers of the same age. They sit in Time and the Dinosaur World, clued as relatives.

Why is the answer T. rex and not Tyrannosaurus?

Answers here stop at 12 letters and Tyrannosaurus has 13. T. rex goes into the grid as four letters, TREX.

Does the dinosaur crossword puzzle print with an answer key?

Yes. The key prints as the last sheet, and the line beside Print gives the page count.

What grade is the dinosaur crossword for?

About grades 2 to 6. With the word bank on, younger solvers match the long names; Fossils and Digs and the time set suit grades 4 to 6. These bands are our judgment, not a published standard.

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