Episode 111
Derek the Deinonychus
Buddy, Tiny and Mom visit a family of Deinonychus, dinosaurs with large, sharp toe-claws. They meet a kid named Derek who uses his toe-claws to not only hunt with but to carve great art!
Fun Fact
Deinonychus, meaning terrible claw, had a powerful hindlimb tipped with a large claw that was likely used for stabbing prey.
Don's Dragonfly
Don makes a new friend with red feet, a dragonfly named Howard.
Related Activity: Make a Dragonfly
Fun Fact
The dragonfly is a very old species that many kids (and adults) will be surprised to learn has been on Earth millions of years before the first dinosaur. And, the dragonfly's features and daily life has changed very little after so many years.
Episode 112
One Small Dinosaur
Mrs. Pteranodon takes Buddy and Tiny to visit a Microraptor named Mikey. Microraptors were one of the smallest dinosaurs ever. Tiny is annoyed that Mikey is even smaller than she is, but Mikey looks up to Tiny as a role model.
Fun Fact
Microraptor measure only 2-2.5 feet from the tip of its nose to the end of its tail. It is one of the few known bird precursors to sport both flight feathers on its fore and hind legs, leading us to believe that these ancient birds glided from tree to tree.
T-Rex Migration
Buddy and Tiny go to visit their friend Annie Tyrannosaurus and discover she isn't home, so they follow clues and find her on a migration with her family.
Fun Fact
Giant carnivores have to eat a lot of meat to survive. This means that they often have to cover considerable distances to find food, sometimes following the movements of herds of plant-eaters.
Episode 113
Hootin' Hadrosaurs!
Buddy, Tiny, Shiny and Don meet Perry Parasaurolophus, a dinosaur with a crest on his head who teaches them a new way to hoot some hip music.
Fun Fact
The Parasaurolophus was a plant-eating duck-billed dinosaur that lived in western North America during the Late Cretaceous.
Hatching Party
Buddy, Tiny and Mrs. Pteranodon attend an egg hatching party and meet their friend Cory Corythosaurus's new brothers and sisters.
Fun Fact
All dinosaurs (even the biggest) were egg-layers and, like birds, many also took care of their young.
Episode 114
The Theropod Club
Buddy's Theropod Club meets with other dinosaurs that walk on two legs, eat meat, and have three toed feet. But Tiny feels left out until the Club invites her to join too!
Fun Fact
Not all dinosaurs lived at the same time, but through the different time periods, dinosaurs with similar features existed. Allosaurus was one of the dominant carnivores in North America at the close of the Jurassic.
Surprise Party
Shiny, Tiny and Don throw a surprise party for Buddy on the Dinosaur Train and invite a whole caboose full of his friends!
Fun Fact
In this episode, different species are brought together in a friendly environment to compare and contrast their unique features. During the party, they also learn about trains.
Episode 115
The Old Spinosaurus & the Sea
Dad takes the kids on the Dinosaur Train to fish in a new place, where they meet a huge, grumpy old dinosaur, called a Spinosaurus, that doesn't want the kids in his sea. Eventually the kids befriend him, and they teach each other their own unique way to catch fish.
Fun Fact
Predators sometimes eat a variety of foods in order to get their fill of meat. The Spinosaurus was very well-suited for catching fish.
A Spiky Tail Tale
Buddy and Tiny help settle an argument between Morris Stegosaurus and Alvin Allosaurus, two very big dinosaurs – one with a very spiky tail, the other with a mouthful of sharp teeth.
Fun Fact
Each dinosaur, including the Stegosaurus used their individual features – in this case its spiky tail – to fight and hunt and protect themselves.
Episode 116
Night Train
Dad, Buddy and Tiny take a special ride on the Dinosaur Train at night, learning about animals that are active after dark, culminating at the Big Pond for a nature walk under the full moon.
Fun Fact
Many animals are most active at night, usually as a means to avoid detection by predators or to aid in hunting (depending on the animal). This lifestyle may have applied to some dinosaurs as well, including Troodon.
Fossil Fred
Buddy, Tiny and Don play "detective" and search around the Big Pond for fossils. The kids end up finding an entire skeleton of a Jurassic dinosaur.
Fun Fact
Fossils have been around since the time of the dinosaurs, so even dinosaurs would have seen fossils. Becoming a fossil is a RARE thing. And finding an entire skeleton of a large dinosaur is even rarer! Fossils are old bones that become rock hard over time.
Episode 117
Dinosaurs in the Snow
Buddy and his Pteranodon family ride the Dinosaur Train to the North Pole - where it's cooler, and the skies are dark all winter long! The kids get to play in the snow and slide on a frozen pond for the first time.
Fun Fact
Troodon lived in a wide range of environments, including the cold, dark, snowy northern polar regions of the Earth.
Cretaceous Conifers
The whole Pteranodon family have fun celebrating Mom's favorite holiday, Winter Solstice. They learn about large conifer (evergreen) trees and help decorate them at a holiday party.
Fun Fact
It's pretty amazing to consider that while many types of animals and plants have become extinct, some trees—like the conifer—have survived for millions of years.
Episode 118
The Burrowers
The Pteranodon family rides the Dinosaur Train to meet a family of amazing, burrowing dinosaurs that live in holes and put on a "Cirque de Soleil" kind of acrobatic show every evening!
Fun Fact
Most kids and parents will be very surprised to learn that some dinosaurs had underground homes (burrows) and took care of their young.
Shiny's Sea Shells
Shiny, with help from Buddy, Tiny and Don, looks for the shiniest sea shells she can find, but ends up making a new friend named Henry, a hermit crab who lives in his own shell on the beach at the Big Pond.
Fun Fact
Just as today, a great variety of shelled sea creatures lived in the oceans during the Age of Dinosaurs. To provide their bodies with structure, and protect their internal organs from damage, many of these animals have exoskeletons or, like the hermit crab, "borrowed" their shells for protection.
Episode 119
King Cryolophosaurus
Buddy, Tiny, Don and Mom meet a reclusive, singing dinosaur named King who has a big swooping crest on his head and a voice that sounds an awful lot like Elvis Presley.
Fun Fact
Cryolophosaurus ("cold crest lizard") was a large theropod dinosaur with a unusual crest on its head that looked like a pompadour. We learn that there were dinosaurs that even lived in cold environments.
Buddy the Tracker
Buddy and Don are "footprint detectives" as they track and find creatures they know at the Big Pond. The plot thickens when they discover fossilized tracks that are millions of years old!
Fun Fact
Animals often leave tracks that can be used to tell us something of the track makers. Dinosaurs left plenty of tracks, and many thousands of these are still preserved today. Paleontologists use fossil trackways to learn all kinds of things about dinosaurs (e.g., posture, speed, group living, environments).
Episode 120
The Old Bird
Buddy, Tiny and Mom make a play date with Petey Peteinosaurus to ride the Dinosaur Train to meet Arlene Archeopteryx, a bird from the family of the oldest birds ever! The kids are excited to learn that Arlene is a bird and a dinosaur.
Fun Fact
Archaeopteryx, the earliest known bird, is a great example of the close relationship between birds and dinosaurs. It is the oldest known bird dating from the Jurassic, and has a mix of dinosaur and bird features.
Home with Shiny & Don
Shiny and Don stay at home. We get to see that just because they don't always ride with Buddy and Tiny on the Dinosaur Train doesn't mean that they are not having fun. An adventure into a local caves leads to a marvelous and brilliant discovery.
Fun Fact
Virtually all of the same diamonds and gems that we know of today were also present in during the Mesozoic. The type of minerals that are present during their formation will give each gemstone its particular color.
