50 free Jurassic trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Jurassic trivia quiz is about the real Jurassic: the middle period of the Mesozoic Era, roughly 201 to 143 million years ago, when dinosaurs took over the land, the first birds took to the air and Pangaea began to tear apart. If you were looking for the movies, our Jurassic Park quiz is the one for you; this page covers the science. The easy questions are the ones a keen ten-year-old would get: which periods came before and after, which mountains gave the Jurassic its name, which famous feathered fossil dates from it, and which spiky-tailed dinosaur roamed the Late Jurassic plains. From there it gets harder: the ammonites geologists use to date the rocks, the two supercontinents Pangaea split into, the German limestone that preserved Archaeopteryx, the Bone Wars fought over the Morrison Formation, the beaver-tailed mammal and the gliding mammals, the biggest bony fish that ever lived, the naming of Brachiosaurus and Diplodocus, and the one geological boundary still without a formal definition. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries on the Jurassic Period, its formations and its animals before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Triassic, dinosaurs and Jurassic Park quizzes next.
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Q 01The Jurassic Period is named after which mountain range on the France-Switzerland border?
The Jura Mountains
Alexander von Humboldt named the limestone there Jura-Kalkstein in 1799; Alexandre Brongniart coined 'terrains jurassiques' in 1829.
Q 02Which period came immediately before the Jurassic?
The Triassic
The Jurassic began about 201.4 million years ago with the end-Triassic mass extinction.
Q 03Which period followed the Jurassic?
The Cretaceous
The Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary is the only boundary between geological periods still formally undefined.
Q 04Roughly how long did the Jurassic Period last?
About 58 million years
It ran from around 201.4 to 143.1 million years ago.
Q 05The Jurassic is the middle period of which era?
The Mesozoic
It is also counted as the eighth period of the Phanerozoic Eon.
Q 06By the start of the Jurassic, the supercontinent Pangaea had begun splitting into which two landmasses?
Laurasia and Gondwana
The rift between North America and Africa opened first, linked to the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province eruptions.
Q 07What was notably absent from the Jurassic world because the climate was warmer than today?
Polar ice caps
Forests grew close to the poles while arid expanses covered the lower latitudes.
Q 08Atmospheric carbon dioxide during the Jurassic was likely how much higher than today?
About four times
Global temperatures ran roughly 5-10 °C warmer than at present.
Q 09Which fossils are the primary index fossils used to divide Jurassic rocks into stages and zones?
Ammonites
The first appearance of the ammonite Psiloceras spelae tirolicum marks the very start of the period.
Q 10Which volcanic event is associated with the mass extinction that opened the Jurassic?
The Central Atlantic Magmatic Province
A later Toarcian anoxic event around 183 million years ago is blamed on the Karoo-Ferrar eruptions.
Q 11Which naturalist named the Jura limestone 'Jura-Kalkstein' in 1799?
Alexander von Humboldt
Von Buch later split the Jurassic into Black, Brown and White divisions in 1839.
Q 12Which French naturalist coined 'terrains jurassiques' in 1829, giving the period its name?
Alexandre Brongniart
He was correlating the Jura limestone with oolitic limestones of similar age in Britain.
Q 13Into how many epochs is the Jurassic divided?
Three
Early, Middle and Late, matching the Lower, Middle and Upper Jurassic rock series.
Q 21Archaeopteryx was roughly the size of which living bird?
A Eurasian magpie
The largest individuals may have reached raven size, about 50 cm long.
Q 22The Solnhofen Limestone that preserved Archaeopteryx lies in which German state?
Bavaria
It was originally quarried for lithographic limestone and even preserves jellyfish imprints.
Q 23Which Upper Jurassic rock unit of the western US is North America's most fertile source of dinosaur fossils?
The Morrison
Centred on Wyoming and Colorado, it covers 1.5 million square kilometres, though over 75% is still buried.
Q 14Which is the only Jurassic stage named from Greek mythology rather than a place?
Tithonian
Albert Oppel chose Tithonus, lover of the dawn goddess Eos, because the stage stands 'hand in hand with the dawn of the Cretaceous'.
Q 15Which English city gives its name to the Middle Jurassic Bathonian stage?
Bath
The Oxfordian, Kimmeridgian and Callovian are also named after English places.
Q 16Which Jurassic rock unit, named after a Dorset village, is the major source rock for North Sea oil?
The Kimmeridge Clay
Jurassic rocks of the Arabian basin also host Ghawar, the world's largest oil field.
Q 17During the Jurassic, which vertebrates dominated the skies?
Pterosaurs
The fish-eating Rhamphorhynchidae were a major Jurassic radiation; furry, insect-eating anurognathids appeared mid-period.
Q 18The first stem-group birds appeared in the Jurassic, evolving from which group of dinosaurs?
Theropods
Archaeopteryx from Late Jurassic Germany is the classic example.
Q 19Archaeopteryx lived in the Late Jurassic in what is now which country?
Germany
Europe was then an archipelago of islands in a warm shallow tropical sea, much closer to the equator.
Q 20Archaeopteryx was first named in 1861 from what kind of fossil?
A single feather
Hermann von Meyer described it; the London Specimen skeleton was unearthed the same year near Langenaltheim.
Q 24Which two rival palaeontologists fought the 'Bone Wars' over Jurassic fossil beds from 1877?
Othniel Marsh and Edward Cope
Arthur Lakes found the first fossils at Morrison, Colorado, that same year.
Q 25Besides fossils, those same Jurassic beds were a major source of which ore in the American Southwest?
Uranium
Most fossils occur in its green siltstone beds, relics of Jurassic rivers and floodplains.
Q 26Which group of dinosaurs became the dominant large herbivores and the largest land animals ever in the Jurassic?
Sauropods
The earliest-Jurassic Ledumahadi of South Africa already weighed an estimated 12 tons.
Q 27What does the name Brachiosaurus mean, in reference to its unusually long forelimbs?
Arm lizard
Elmer Riggs named it in 1903 from Colorado fossils; most pop-culture images are actually based on Giraffatitan from Tanzania.
Q 28Diplodocus takes its name from the 'double beam' shape of which bones?
Chevrons under the tail
Marsh coined the name in 1878; the Carnegie Museum's 'Dippy' was cast for museums from London to St Petersburg.
Q 29Which Late Jurassic dinosaur is known for kite-shaped plates along its back and spikes on its tail?
Stegosaurus
Its braincase was no larger than a dog's; the 'second brain in the hips' idea is a myth.
Q 30The plate-backed dinosaur became which US state's official fossil in 1982 after a fourth-graders' campaign?
Colorado
Ruth Sawdo's class at McElwain Elementary in Thornton ran the two-year campaign.