13 dinosaur myths scientists wish we'd stop believing

• If you think there's no chance you'll ever see a live dinosaur on the Earth — be prepared to have your mind blown.
• Paleontologists say that birds evolved from dinosaurs, which means dinosaurs are alive today in the form of their bird descendants.
• Here are more fascinating facts about dinosaurs that prove common myths wrong. 

SEE ALSO: Massive dinosaur footprints found in Scotland could shed light into a little-understood time period

Myth: Dinosaurs are extinct

There was definitely a mass extinction event 65 million years ago (probably related to a giant asteroid that smashed into Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula), and it did spell the end for most dinosaur species. But not all. "Today's birds evolved from dinosaurs, which makes them every bit as much of a dinosaur as T. rex or Triceratops," says paleontologist Steve Brusatte, author of the book, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs. "A good analogy is bats. Bats are a weird type of mammal that developed wings and the ability to fly. Birds are a weird type of dinosaur that did the same thing."

Daniel Barta, a PhD candidate at the American Museum of Natural History's Richard Gilder Graduate School, adds that there are more species of birds alive today (at least 10,000) than any other group of land-living animals with backbones. "Dinosaurs are alive and well today in the form of their bird descendants," he says.

Myth: Dinosaurs were scaly lizards

Not necessarily. "There are thousands of fossils of feather-covered dinosaurs that have been found in China over the last two decades," Brusatte says. In fact, fossils show that a cousin of the T. rex called Yutyrannus was covered in downy fluff (which probably didn't make it less scary to its prey). Feathers would have helped dinosaurs regulate their body temperature, so they would have been particularly helpful to smaller animals such as Velociraptors. Even the biggest plant-eaters might have had a little fuzz, like the tufts of hair on elephants.

Myth: Dinosaurs were cold-blooded

Scientists can tell from looking at the microscopic structure of dinosaur bones that they grew rapidly, and only animals like birds and mammals, with fast metabolisms and well-regulated body temperatures, do that. It explains why dinosaurs evolved to have feathers for insulation, but it's still not totally clear whether their body temperatures worked exactly like ours do. "There are a lot of different ways to be 'warm-blooded,'" says Barta. "It is probable that dinosaurs were not exactly like birds or mammals in terms of their metabolism." Check out more interesting animal distinctions you forgot all about.