Do we really know what dinosaurs looked like? Of course we do. We see them everywhere, not only in museums, but also in movies, magazines, and even in the toys we get from McDonald's. Since the days of early cinema, dinosaurs have captured our imaginations. They are often shown as scaly   beasts with sharp horns   and crocodile-like bellies  . But the big screen dinosaurs are "a leap from what we know", Mark Norell, who studies dinosaurs at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, told Discover magazine. The reality of drawing dinosaurs for movie studios, magazines, or museums is that the artist often only has half of a skeleton to work with. Many existing and newly-discovered dinosaurs do not have a complete skeleton, which makes it difficult to tell what they looked like. And even with a complete skeleton, there is a lot of room for interpretation.   "Look at an elephant's trunk   and ears," Jason Brougham, a dinosaur sculptor   at the American Museum of Natural History, told Discover magazine. "It's impossible to guess those features by only looking at the skeleton." Researchers suggest that the dinosaurs of old could have had trunks like an elephant or even red necks like a turkey. They could have had colorful spots, stripes  , and other interesting patterns on their bodies, just like snakes. Yet, with only a few fossilized   bones to study, it is impossible to know for sure. Remember the cruel and quick-running velociraptors   in the US film Jurassic Park? Now experts believe that they were much smaller than in the movies, about the size of a large chicken, the BBC has reported. Since the 1990s, some well-preserved dinosaur fossils have been found in China's Liaoning province. Thanks to that, we have known for a while that one group of dinosaurs was covered in feathers. And thanks to the recent discovery of a feathered plant-eating species in Russia, many scientists now believe more dinosaurs than we previously thought had feathers, much like a chicken. Also, in 2007, scientists confirmed that the closest living relative of T-Rex, the most feared and famous of all the dinosaurs, is a chicken. Now, who are you calling "chicken"? Why it is difficult to tell what dinosaurs looked like?
Many existing and newly--discovered dinosaurs do not have a complete skeleton Researchers can't agree with each other Dinosaurs in early films have captured our imaginations. No well-preserved dinosaur fossils are found