Chris Madsen, age 10, of Salt Lake City, Utah, for his question:

DID DINOSAURS HATCH FROM EGGS?

The dinosaurs were fantastic reptiles and most reptiles of the modern world lay eggs. However, snakes are reptiles and some snaky species give birth to live offspring. The last of the dinosaurs departed from this world some 60 million years ago. So we have no chance to study the details of their family lives. However, goodness knows, the monstrous creatures left plenty of fossils to give us clues.

Some of the dinosaur fossils include nests of large, oval reptile type eggs. A few show baby dinosaurs either hatching or newly hatched. Most experts use this evidence to assume that all the dinosaurs hatched from eggs. This may be true. On the other hand, like modern reptiles, a few may have been born alive, though so far no evidence of this has been found.