There are no animals that children are more passionate about than dinosaurs, the exciting story of huge, fast and fierce animals has impressed thousands of children generation after generation. The exciting world of the dinosaurs, find new deposits and learn more about these beings that inhabited the earth for 160 million years and that disappeared leaving us with many unanswered questions. let’s find out how they lived, what their habitat was like and how they could disappear so quickly.
What was there before the dinosaurs
In order to understand this exciting period in the history of our planet, we must first know what situation existed on Earth, so that the necessary conditions were given for the appearance of the great giants in the history of the planet, the dinosaurs.
Protozoic era
Well, before talking about life on our planet we will say that the earth in its early stages, in the so-called Protozoic Era, the planet is a sea of lava, full of volcanoes with constant eruptions. The steam from the volcanoes causes rain that will be responsible for cooling the earth. The oceans are formed during this period. The Protozoic Era is divided into 3 periods in turn:
archaic periodthe oldest dating to about 4.6 billion years ago, there is no life.
Moving forward to 3.8 billion years ago and thanks to the archaic period, we enter the Precambic Periodwhere the appearance of oxygen in the atmosphere, make the first forms of life evolve, such as cyanobacteria.
2.5 billion years ago and up to 542 million years ago, we entered the last phase of the Protozoic Era. The Cryogenic Periodmarked by glacial temperatures and the Ediacaran Period, with the appearance of the first complex cells and the first multicellular life systems.
Paleozoic era
The Paleozoic Era begins approximately 542 million years ago, it is a period of great evolution. In this period the surface of the Earth begins to divide into different continents, as we have just seen, animals with shells have just appeared, in this era they will begin to proliferate, both animals with shells and with external skeleton or exoskeleton.
Until now, life forms were primitive, small invertebrates. In this era the transformation will be complete, invertebrates will evolve into more complex forms, giving rise to vertebrate animals.
The life that was reduced exclusively to the marine environment, comes out of the water and colonizes the land. The first land plants appear, such as ferns and conifers. With the appearance of the first plants, the earth’s atmosphere begins to be loaded with oxygen, until it practically reaches today’s levels.
The first insects appear, the first vertebrate animals and the earth is filled with amphibians and reptiles.
At this time, the great continent Pangea I breaks away. With the separation of the supercontinent that, as we will remember, had been created approximately 650 million years ago, in the Protozoic, new lands began to emerge that looked like islands surrounded by shallow seas.
In this era Pangea is divided into two fundamental continents, Laurasia and Gondwana. But all these masses will collide several times throughout the Paleozoic Era, until forming again, another great Pangea II supercontinent.
The Paleozoic era is divided into six periods:
- Cambrian: The first invertebrates such as shells, snails, cephalopod molluscs and trilobites appear in the shallow seas. Algae in the sea and the first lichens on earth. Increased oxygen.
- Ordovician : The continents approach each other and the first mountains appear, the magma bags are compressed and cause great volcanic activity. The first vertebrates appear, primitive fish with a backbone and snails. The mainland begins to be conquered, the first terrestrial arthropods appear.
- Silurian: Evolution on earth continues, scorpion-like animals populate the earth. Different species of simple plants, still without roots, begin to populate the mainland. Plants that do not have seeds.
- Devonian: The climate is hot and rainy, the fish that previously only lived in salt water, adapt to life in fresh water. Some primitive sharks and the dipnoos that were fish with a respiratory system of a primitive lung. If they ran out of water, they were able to breathe air, possibly the first amphibians. Other animals were corals, starfish and the appearance of the first insect, we also owe it to this time, to the Devonian. As for the plants, the most complex plants appear, with stems and leaves, although they did not yet have flowers. Its reproduction was by spores. The first ferns with seeds appear, as well as some trees with scales, the conifers that begin to group together forming the first forests.
First period. The two supercontinents Laurasia and Gondwana merge back into a single continent Pangea II. New mountain ranges appear and the climate varies according to the area of the planet, with areas where glaciations occur and others where the climate is hot and humid.
Two qualities, the latter, that will provide the appearance of swampy areas. As terrestrial animals of this time we must highlight a class of amphibious lizards, evolved from the dipnoos, while the sea is filled with enormous sharks.
Second period: Amphibians spread throughout the land, reptiles appear on our planet, they can only live on land. The amniotic membrane develops and the first winged insects, the first dragonflies. Spiders, snakes, scorpions, frogs.
- Permian: Two different types of reptiles appear in this period, some similar to lizards, very fast and terrestrial, and others that were semi-aquatic, much slower. It was a type of reptile called Theriodontia, the ancestors of the first mammals. Conifers and ferns was the green mass of the Permian. The Appalachians, the Urals and part of the Andean mountain range appear.
A series of transformations experienced in this period, such as the collisions between continents, the elevation of land, etc., caused the disappearance of almost 90% of the species that inhabited the seas, however, they led to the great expansion of reptiles, the Age of the Dinosaurs.
Age of Dinosaurs | Mesozoic
Dinosaurs, how much do we know about them? Dinosaurs populated the planet for about 160 million years, a time so long that it is very difficult for us to understand. We propose that you seek to understand together the magnitude of the dinosaurs’ past.
The dinosaurs They existed and were extinct a long time before the emergence of the human species. For this reason, his study does not correspond to the history (which studies human societies), but to the science of the Paleontology.
We can say that the time of the dinosaurs corresponds to the Mesozoic erawhich It begins 225 million years ago and ended about 65 million years ago. The existence of dinosaurs on earth covers three periods that are: Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous.
Despite the great variety of species that have come to be known about dinosaurs, it is believed that the first dinosaur was the Eoraptor (a small bipedal predator), and it is considered the common ancestor of all dinosaurs of the time.
Of the three epochs, they were those of the Jurassic and Cretaceous those that covered the greatest presence of dinosaurs (where the Tyrannosaurus rex, the Triceratops and the Diplodocus lived). About the end of this last period its extinction took place.
The Dinosaurs inhabited the Earth for more than 160 million of years. A truly impressive figure, considering that the first human beings emerged 2.5 million years ago. As you will see, these are really very large amounts of time. To better understand them, the ideal is to know the exercise of the Cosmic Year, which will be easy and fun for you.
Age of Dinosaurs – Mesozoic | Triassic period
Goes from 251 to 199 million years ago. In the triassic period begins the “age of reptiles”, in which the so-called “pseudomammalian” reptiles predominated. Later the first specimens of dinosaurs and other large reptiles appeared. As they evolve, dinosaurs begin to dominate all ecosystems on Earth.
At that time the planet Earth was made up of a single continent called Pangea, which later divided to give rise to the current continents. This is what explains why dinosaur fossils have been found all over the world.
Age of Dinosaurs – Mesozoic | Jurassic period
Silk from 199 to 145 million years ago. This was the period of heyday of the dinosaurs At this point appear the first species of their future successors: birds and mammals. The most primitive flowering plants also appear at this time.
At this moment Pangea -the only continent- begins its process of division. This allows certain species to evolve differently on different continents.
Age of Dinosaurs – Mesozoic | Cretaceous period
covers from 145 to 65 million years ago. It’s celebrity time tyrannosaurs. At the end of this period there was a catastrophe that caused important changes on the planet.
The studies scientists endorse the theory of a gigantic meteorite that fell in the area of gulf of mexico. This would have caused extinction of the dinosaurs and many other species. In fact, we can say that it is estimated that around 50% of the biological genera existing at that time could have disappeared, and among them, the vast majority of dinosaurs.
What dinosaurs existed in the Cretaceous period?
We already know that the age of the dinosaurs is divided into several periods, despite the fact that in movies like Jurassic Park we have seen several specimens living together despite the fact that they were separated by thousands of years. That is why we want to show you which were the dinosaurs that existed in the Cretaceous period.
tyrannosaurus rex
Tyrannosaurus rex is one of the fiercest predators to ever walk the earth. With a huge body, sharp teeth and jaws strong enough to crush a car, this famous predator dominated the forested river valleys of western North America in the late Cretaceous, 68 million years ago. While the name Tyrannosaurus Rex is widely known, what we know about Tyrannosaurus Rex is constantly changing. Innovative technologies such as biomechanical modeling and X-ray imaging have helped scientists better understand how this crested predator lived.
Tyrannosaurus rex is a real nightmare. This wild predator is perfectly built for grinding food, with a robust skull that allows it to concentrate all of its muscular strength into a single bite, generating up to six tons of pressure. This dinosaur used 60 serrated teeth, each about 8 inches long,…