🦖Where Did the Dinosaurs Go?
Pip the little blue bird sits on a friendly T. rex in a prehistoric jungle with a Triceratops and a long-necked dinosaur.

Where Did the Dinosaurs Go?

A true story from long, long ago, told by Pip, a tiny blue bird with a BIG secret.

👆 Tap the animals in the picture. Tap 📖 Read to me to hear the story. Then press Next ▶.

A sunny valley with a long-necked dinosaur, Triceratops, T. rex, Ankylosaurus and a flying Quetzalcoatlus.

Dinosaurs lived on Earth for a super-duper long time: about 165 million years!

That's way, way longer than people have been around. Big ones, small ones, spiky ones and long-necked ones all stomped around.

👆 Tap each animal to say hello! 0 / 6
Planet Earth seen from dark, starry space.
An asteroid. Tap it!

Then, 66 million years ago, a giant space rock called an asteroid came zooming toward Earth.

It was about 10 km wide, bigger than a mountain! And it was flying about 20 km every second. That's around 80 times faster than a jet plane!

👆 Tap the asteroid and watch where it goes.
A bright flash on the horizon, dust clouds and a big wave, while the T. rex, Triceratops and Pip look surprised.

KA-BOOM! The asteroid crashed into the sea near a place we now call Mexico.

It dug a hole about 180 km wide. The ground shook, giant waves called tsunamis rushed across the ocean, and hot dust and rocks flew high into the sky.

👆 Tap the bright flash, then tap the big wave!
A dark, dusty sky with a dim sun. The T. rex, Triceratops and Pip huddle together in the cold.

Dust and soot spread all around the world like a giant, dirty blanket in the sky.

The Sun's light could hardly get through. For months, maybe even years, Earth was dark and cold, like a winter night that wouldn't end. Brrr!

🌋 Double trouble: big volcanoes in India were also puffing out smoke and gas around this time. 👆 Tap the Sun and the shivering friends.
Wilted plants, a hungry Triceratops sniffing a dry leaf, and a hungry T. rex holding its tummy.

Plants need sunlight to make their food. With no sunlight, the plants wilted.

So the plant-eaters got hungry... and then the meat-eaters got hungry too. It's like a row of falling dominoes!

🌿 Plants➜ 🦕 Plant-eaters➜ 🦖 Meat-eaters
👆 Tap in order: plants, then Triceratops, then T. rex.
A tiny mammal in a burrow, a turtle, a crocodile and a frog in a pond, and a bird family in a tree hollow.

But not everyone disappeared! Small animals that could hide, didn't need much food, and could eat seeds, bugs or old leaves made it through.

About 3 out of every 4 kinds of living things vanished. The little ones kept life going.

🔎 Find the survivors! Tap the hiding places. 0 / 5
The T. rex and a chicken stand side by side on a farm, with Pip flying between them.

Now here's Pip's BIG secret: birds ARE dinosaurs!

Some small, feathered dinosaurs survived. Over millions of years, they became the birds we see today. That means a chicken is a cousin of T. rex!

👆 Tap the T. rex, the chicken, and their feet. What looks the same?
A cliff with colorful rock layers, a thin dark stripe, and dinosaur fossil bones below it. A kid scientist looks with a magnifying glass.

How do scientists know all this? They dig! Rocks pile up in layers, like a giant layer cake. The bottom layers are the oldest.

All around the world, there is one thin, dark layer of asteroid dust. Below it: dinosaur fossils. Above it: no more big dinosaurs!

🗺️ Scientists even found the giant crater, buried under Mexico. It's called Chicxulub (say: CHEEK-shoo-loob). 👆 Tap the layers!
A kid in a park points at birds flying and a pink cloud shaped like a dinosaur.

The End... or is it?

The dinosaurs didn't all go away. Some of them are flying over your head right now! Next time you see a pigeon, say: "Hello, little dinosaur!"

🧠 Quick Quiz!

1. What crashed into Earth?
2. Why did the plants wilt?
3. Which one is a living dinosaur?
🚀 Next book: Are We There Yet?