Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Animals, creatures that roamed Earth before humans

Dinosaur Summary

• Dinosaurs roamed for over 160 million years but died out 65 million years ago.
• Dinosaurs are lizards/reptiles of various sizes that roamed the planet for millions of years.
• Before Dinosaurs lived Pelycosaurs, the most well-known of which was the Dimetrodon. Pelycosaurs are more closely related to mammals than to Dinosaurs. The Dinosaurs
• Before dinosaurs roamed the planet, there were other prehistoric monsters. The most well-known of pre-historic monsters is Dimetrodon, which is known as a Pelycosaur.
• Over the years, dinosaurs evolved with new dinosaurs appearing and old ones dying out. Eventually, all the dinosaurs became extinct.
• Dinosaurs appeared in one of three main periods of the Earth's life. The periods are :- (MYA = Millions of Years Ago)
  • Triassic (251-199.6 Mya)
  • Jurassic (199.6 - 145.5 Mya)
  • Cretaceous (145.5 - 65.5 Mya).
• Considering how long they were on this planet, they were very successful.
• Dinosaurs existed on every continent of the planet, including Antarctica.
• When the dinosaurs were around, all the continents were grouped into one mass continent called Pangaea. The continents will be joined again in hundreds of millions of years. The new super continent is referred to as Amasia. Humanity is expected to have disappeared by them.
• Dinosaurs became extinct about 65 Million Years ago, the cause of the mass extinction is believed to be a meteor collision More...
• Dinosaurs were first discovered in 1676 Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire. More...
• Birds are believed to be descendants of surviving dinosaurs.
• Dinosaurs were wiped out due to sheer bad luck. Had the meteor hit the Earth 30 seconds either side of the time it struck, the dinosaurs may still be walking amongst us. Big Think.
• Birds are believed to be descendants of dinosaurs.
• The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs was 12 km wide. BBC
• The heaviest dinosaur ever to have walked the planet was the Argentinosaurus Live Science
• The largest carnivorous Dinosaur was the Spinosaurus, and was at least 17 meters long. Its head was 5'9", about the size of an average man. Guiness World Records
• Below is an A.I. rendering of dinosaurs. The front dinosaur would appear to be a Tyranosaurus Rex but its arms are too bit.

Prehistoric Animals

When life first began on the planet, life was just simple single cellular life forms for over a billion years. Life began to take shape only after the cells became more complex. The first prehistoric life forms would have been sea creatures who eventually evolved and made it onto land.

The first creatures would have been ammonites, other molluscs, fish, lungfish, and then onto land. One of the earliest creatures on this planet was the Dimetrodon, which people might assume was a dinosaur, but as mentioned before, it is a Pelycosaur.

What is the difference between Pelycosaurs and Dinosaurs?

Pelycosaurs became extinct before the rise of the Dinosaurs in the Triassic Period. Pelycosaurs are more closely related to mammals than they are dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are more reptilian than anything else. A catastrophic event caused the end of the Pelycosaurs and led to dinosaurs. Over time, dinosaurs came and went, eventually all dying out due to what is believed to be an asteroid strike.

Periods and Eras

Permian

The Permian era was a period of Earth's history from about 298.9 Million years ago to 251.9 Million Years ago. The continents were still as one, Pangea. There were no dinosaurs during this period; they were Pelycosaurs, as mentioned above. The most famous animal of this period is the Dimetrodon, with its large sail on the back.

The period ended when the Permian-Triassic extinction event occurred. Nearly 96% of marine and 70% of land animals became extinct during the extinction. Life on Earth would not return to the same level until well into the Triassic Period. Wiki

Triassic

This was the first of three eras in which the dinosaurs would claim the Earth as their own. It is a period of the Earth's history that stretches from 251.9 million years ago to 201.3 million years ago. Life was trying to get back to the pre-Extinction Level again. The dinosaurs didn't appear on the planet until late into the era.

Jurassic

The Jurassic Period is probably the best-known of the eras, thanks to a certain movie franchise. The Jurassic Period was when the age of Dinosaurs took off. It started about 201.3 Million Years Ago to 145 Million Years ago. The era started to resemble the earlier era after an Extinction Level incident. This period was when the familiar Stegosaurus and Diplodocus roamed the planet.

Cretaceous

This was the third and last era of the dinosaurs. It took place from 145 Million Years ago to 65 Million Years ago. It was the time of the Tyrannosaurus Rex and his enemy, the Triceratops, as we are led to believe by the movies. It would end with a Meteor smashing into the Earth and killing nearly all the creatures alive.

Evidence of Dinosaurs

As no one lived during the age of the dinosaurs, we don't have an oral or written description of them despite what some people say. There are no cave paintings showing dinosaurs. The only evidence that we do have is their skeletons that have been unearthed.

The skeletal head above is of a plant-eating Triceratops, which, as seen in old movies, is the enemy of the dreaded Tyrannosaurus Rex. The actual skeletal head can be found at the Cosmo Caixa museum in Barcelona, Spain. Despite its website, it does do exhibitions in English.

Some skeletal remains have been discovered with their skin, so we know what dinosaurs roughly look like. A Nodosaur dinosaur was accidentally discovered in 2011 by oil mine workers. The Nodosaur wasn't a fossil but a mummified dinosaur remains. All That's Interesting

Some fossilised/mummified dinosaur eggs have been discovered. Unfortunately, the eggs won't hatch. The egg can be mistaken for a large, smooth rock. Only analysis or an expert eye can tell the difference. CosmoCaixa is not the only place to have fossilised remains, and they can be seen at any decent museum near you.

The Saltasaurus was a giant quadruped dinosaur of the late Cretaceous Period. They were commonly found in Argentina.

Dragons and Dinosaurs

Although the first realisation of dinosaurs was made in 1676, dinosaur bones were known about for centuries before. Dinosaur bones were thought to belong to dragons that breathed fire across the land and ate humans and livestock. The Chinese ground up dragon bones and used them as herbal medicine, not realising what they were. Dragons' stories spread globally, predominately in Europe and China.

Discovery History

Bones were probably as far back as Roman times, but no one was interested. The Chinese knew these bones but had always called them the remains of dragons, things not to be touched. The Chinese alleged to have ground up the bones and used them in herbal medicine as they weren't aware of what they were looking at at the time. The Chinese historian of the time, Chang Qu, mislabelled a dinosaur as a dragon. Ref: Act For Libraries .

The Inca of Peru had a dragon Amaru, which was probably inspired by the discovery of a dinosaur bone but not knowing any better, referred to them as dragons.

1676, the first dinosaur was discovered by accident in a limestone quarry near Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire, England. The discovery was of a large dinosaur bone, which was then sent for analysis by scientists at the University of Oxford. Prof. Robert Plot, a chemistry lecturer, investigated the bone. He identified it as a leg bone and believed it belonged to giants mentioned in the bible. He detailed this find in a paper called the 'Natural History of Oxfordshire'. The bone belonged to a Megalosaurus, but dinosaurs had not yet been fully discovered. Over the next couple of years, more bones belonging to Megalosaurus were discovered.

In the early part of the nineteenth century, Harvard and Yale's scholars were interested in a fossilised footprint found at a Massachusetts farm but no link to dinosaurs yet. Other fossils were discovered, discounted, or ignored, and the people working where they had been found carried on with their actions.

1822, on the south coast, the second dinosaur was discovered by Mary Ann Mantell, wife of Gideon Mantell, a doctor. There is controversy over who of the couple discovered the giant tooth. The tooth was said to resemble an Iguanas but larger, so it was named Iguanodon, an Iguana-toothed creature. At this time, interest in dinosaurs began across England, Europe, and America. Iguanodons have been found all over the world.

1838, the first dinosaur bones in America were discovered in a small town called Haddonfield, Camden, New Jersey. The bones were put on display, but it was not until a visitor arrived in 1858 that the full skeleton was finally assembled. It was identified and named before being transferred to the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences.

1842, they became known as Dinosaurs after Sir Richard Owen coined the name: B.B.C. . The term derives from the Greek deinos, "terrible, powerful, wondrous" sauros "lizard". Richard Owen persuaded the Royal Family to back him as he set up the London Natural History Museum. The museum was where the dinosaur finds would be exhibited to the public.

Popular Culture

The Lost World

In the early days of television and film, humans and dinosaurs were shown fighting for survival. Tyrannosaurs are usually seen fighting with Triceratops in earlier films. Those fights probably did happen in real life, unlike against humans. That never happened in real life; the dinosaurs died out long before humans arrived on this planet. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of Sherlock Holmes stories, wrote "The Lost World" about where dinosaurs survived their extinction and live and breathe today. The central character, Professor Challenger, takes a group of people to Venezuela to explore the plateau. Although more associated with dinosaurs, most of the story deals with prehistoric humanoids.

Jurassic Park / World

Michael Crichton wrote about bringing dinosaurs back to life after Dinosaur D.N.A. was found in a fossilised fly. The book Jurassic Park was made into a film which became one of the most successful films of all time. The original film spawned two sequels and a re-imagined series of films known as Jurassic World.

World of Warcraft

In World of Warcraft, the zone Un'Goro Crater, dinosaurs roam unimpeded across the zone. Raptors roam with other creatures in other zones, e.g., Arathi Highlands/Wetlands (Veloci). Troll racial mount are Raptors, but other players can ride Raptors. The Alliance can't ride Troll Raptors. On Pandaria, there is a zone called Isle of Giants where there is a Dinosaur world boss that drops a mount.

Loch Ness Monster

People claim that a sea monster is living in Loch Ness in Scotland, but nothing has been discovered despite many investigations. The Loch is many feet deep, and anything could hide down there.

Some say it is a dinosaur whose ancestors survived all the great extinctions. Some people claim to have seen it, and there's photographic evidence of the monster's poor quality there. Until we see more proof, there is something down there, and it'll just be the stuff of legends and tourism.

Dinosaur's Extinction

Over millions of years, dinosaurs died off or were made extinct by an event. Triassic dinosaurs died off before the Jurassic dinosaurs appeared. If Triassic dinosaurs were around, they were in their death throes. At the end of the Cretaceous Period, a large percentage of dinosaurs were wiped off the face of the Earth. Dinosaurs no longer ruled or were never seen again on the planet.

The most widely accepted reason for the extinction of the dinosaurs is a meteorite crashing into the land/sea just off the east coast of Mexico, causing the death of the dinosaurs. When the meteor hit, dust and particles were thrown into the air by the force of the collision. The dust blocked out the Sun, causing vegetation to die off, followed by herbivores and carnivores. It wasn't a sudden event but one that took years to happen. However, a few life forms survived the mass extinction, and one example is the crocodile. It took many years for the ecosystem to return to normal and for new life to flourish. Humans weren't the first on the scene yet, and other creatures appeared first. Mass Extinctions

In the future, it is not inconceivable that another meteor could crash into the Earth and kill all life as it did 65 million years ago. Unlike the Dinosaurs, we have ideas on how to prevent the destruction of life, and it's just a case of putting them to the test before it's too late.

Dinosaurs and Humans

You've probably seen films in the past such as "1,000,000 Years B.C.", which, if you'd forgotten, had Raquel Welch running around in a leather bikini, where dinosaurs and humans co-existed. They didn't. Dinosaurs, as has been said, became extinct 65 Million Years ago. The consensus amongst scientists is that humans first appeared about 1 - 2 Million Years ago in Africa.

Despite what some might say, humans and dinosaurs never walked on the planet together. Those who say that humans and dinosaurs were on the Earth call carbon dating flawed and try to find evidence in past scriptures.

Alive today?

The dinosaurs we associate as dinosaurs, the Tyrannosauruses, the Triceratops and the Diplodocuses, are no longer alive today. Animals from the dinosaur time are alive. The most well-known of those are the crocodiles. Somehow, the crocodiles survived when the meteor crashed into the Earth, killing most of all the other life forms.

Other examples of dinosaurs alive today are the birds we see. The dinosaurs evolved into birds. Archaeopteryx was the first or amongst the first of the feathered dinosaurs to appear. The Archaeopteryx itself no longer exists, but its descendants probably do.

Making a Return

People fantasise about whether Dinosaurs could one day walk the Earth again. Sadly, that could not happen even with our scientific knowledge. To recreate a dinosaur, we need to obtain D.N.A. from fossilised remains. All attempts at doing so have met with poor quality D.N.A. Dinosaurs might not be returning, but Sabre-tooth Tigers and Woolly Mammoths could make a return. Taking D.N.A. from those extinct creatures and impregnating a close relative of those creatures could create a hybrid. If you keep taking the hybrid and getting it to mate with another hybrid by the selection, you could create a near-perfect extinct creature. Hybrids would have to be screened so that they pass on as many extinct monster D.N.A. as possible. The only possible way dinosaurs could return is by creating a time machine to bring one back. Alternatively, we get off this planet and find a world where dinosaurs exist.

If you were to bring a dinosaur back to the present, it might have unintended consequences because you are essentially changing the future from that point on, however insignificant you might think it to be.