Stegosaurus Coloring Page — Free Printable for Kids

A Stegosaurus coloring page. This is a free printable for kids: the double row of plates along the back, the four tail spikes and the small head are drawn with bold outlines that are easy to fill in. The sheet comes with a strip of suggested colors and a small colored version in the corner, and the dinosaur’s name is printed at the bottom in Japanese katakana. Download the PDF and print it at home or in class; no registration required.

Free download — no registration required

What were the plates on the back of Stegosaurus for?

Temperature control, warning off attackers and signalling to other Stegosaurus have all been suggested, and no single answer has settled the question. The plates carried blood vessels, which is why the radiator idea keeps coming up. The largest of them reached about 70 cm, well over two feet.

Is it true that Stegosaurus had a very small brain?

It was small for such a large animal — often compared to a walnut. That alone tells us little, though: brain size is a poor guide to how an animal actually lived. There is also a widened space in the spinal cord near the hips, once described as a “second brain” that ran the back half of the body — an old idea that most researchers have since set aside.

How many spikes are there on the tail?

Four long ones. In English they go by the odd name “thagomizer”, a joke from a newspaper cartoon that palaeontologists adopted and never gave back. Allosaurus bones with puncture wounds that match those spikes suggest the tail really was swung as a weapon.