- See also: List of species in The Land Before Time
Three characters belonging to species that are quantified as dinosaurs in the context of the series - Chomper (a Tyrannosaurus), Ducky (a hadrosaur) and Petrie (a Pteranodon)
"Dinosaur" is a term very rarely used in The Land Before Time, and much more frequently used in promotional material, to describe a vast number of prehistoric reptile species. While the real-world scientific definition of the word "dinosaur" is fairly restrictive, traditionally defined as the most recent common ancestor of Megalosaurus and Iguanodon and all of its descendants, its usage in and adjacent to the franchise is more flexible, often being used to describe cladistically-non-dinosaur characters such as Petrie, a Pteranodon.[1][2]
Though most creatures in The Land Before Time are not referred to with names used by modern humans - Apatosaurus are referred to as "longnecks" and Stegosaurus are "spiketails", for instance - the word "dinosaur" is used by the characters in the series. Examples of the word "dinosaur" being used by characters include in The Land Before Time IV: Journey through the Mists, when the Old One states that some dinosaurs recover from Grandpa Longneck's illness, while others do not, and in The Land Before Time VI: The Secret of Saurus Rock, wherein a legendary Diplodocus is consistently referred to as "the Lone Dinosaur".
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