Editor's note: This article was originally published in The Surveyor, YouGov America's email newsletter. It has been revised for publication here. Subscribe to The Surveyor for regular updates on YouGov's polling.

YouGov's polling shows that 30- to 44-year-olds are more likely than other adults to say they like or love dinosaurs: 58% say so, compared to 48% of those under 30, 46% of 45- to 64-year olds, and 34% of those 65 and older. Men and college graduates are more likely to have favorite dinosaurs than are women and non-graduates. Liberals and those who say religion isn't important in their life are more likely to view dinosaurs positively than are moderates, conservatives, and Americans who are more religious.

This isn't to say that many people dislike dinosaurs. Only 3% of Americans say they dislike or hate dinosaurs. Instead, a plurality (47%) of Americans say they neither like nor dislike dinosaurs, while another 47% say they either like (17%) or love (30%) dinosaurs.

More Americans say they liked or loved dinosaurs as kids than say they like or love them now (56% vs. 47%). 60% of adults under 30, 65% of 30- to 44-year-olds, and 62% of 45- to 64-year-olds say they liked or loved dinosaurs as kids — but only 34% of Americans 65 and older did.

Among Americans who like or love dinosaurs, 81% say they have a favorite dinosaur, almost twice the share of those who neither like nor dislike dinosaurs who have a favorite (44%).

Tyrannosaurus rex is the most common favorite dinosaur, among dinosaur fans and non-fans alike: 24% of adults, 29% of those who like or love dinosaurs, and 19% of those who are neutral about dinosaurs say T. rex is their favorite.

Other common favorite dinosaurs include brontosaurus (7% of Americans), triceratops (6%), pterodactyls (5%), velociraptors (5%), and stegosaurus (4%). (We included two dinosaur-like reptiles — pterodactyls and plesiosaurs — as options alongside actual dinosaur species.) 6% of Americans say another type of dinosaur is their favorite.

We asked respondents how many dinosaurs they thought they could name off the top of their head. 9% of Americans think they couldn't name any, while 8% say they could name one, 13% two, 19% three, 13% four, and 25% five or more. 7% of Americans say they could name 10 or more types of dinosaurs.

Then we put these claims to the test and asked those respondents who said they could name at least one dinosaur to name as many dinosaurs as they could. We had an AI agent classify the results, with instructions to be generous about misspellings.

Overall, 84% named fewer dinosaurs than they thought they would, while 15% named the same number they predicted, and only 2% named more. Only 16% named five or more types of dinosaurs, fewer than the 25% who said they could. 16% who said they could name one dinosaur didn't name any.

YouGov also asked Americans whether they had seen any of 11 dinosaur-themed movies. Jurassic Park topped the list, with 77% of Americans saying they have seen it, followed by King Kong (63%), Jurassic World (58%), The Land Before Time (49%), Journey to the Center of the Earth (40%), Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (38%), and Land of the Lost (33%). Only 7% of Americans said they hadn't seen any of the 11 dinosaur movies.

See the results of this poll

Methodology: The April 2 - 5, 2026 poll was conducted among 1,115 U.S. adult citizens. Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel to be representative of U.S. adult citizens. A random sample (stratified by gender, age, race, education, geographic region, and voter registration) was selected from the 2019 American Community Survey. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, U.S. region, 2024 presidential vote, 2020 election turnout and presidential vote, baseline party identification, and current voter registration status. 2024 presidential vote, at time of weighting, was estimated to be 48% Harris and 50% Trump. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Baseline party identification is the respondent’s most recent answer given around November 8, 2024, and is weighted to the estimated distribution at that time (31% Democratic, 33% Republican). The margin of error for the overall sample is approximately 4%.

Image: Getty (Joe Regan)

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