Dean R. Lomax - My Book of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life: Animals and plants to amaze, surprise, and astonish!

AND Author: Dr . D ean Lomax

W here did life come from? T yp es of life T imeline H ow has Earth changed? F ossils F ossil fo rmation P lants through time A raucaria W illiamsonia L ycophytes T empskya M agnolia A nimals through time D ickinsonia H allucigenia P arac eraurus A nomalocaris H eliophyllum E ncrinus E urypterus M esolimulus S caphites C ylindrot euthis A rthropleura M eganeura D unkleosteus Project Editors Olivia Stanford, Radhika Haswani US Editor Margaret Pa rrish US Executive Editor Lori Hand Assistant Editor Niharika Prabhaka r Senior Art Editor Nidhi Mehra Project Art Editors Lucy Sims, Rashika Kachroo Jacket Coordinator Issy Wa lsh Jacket Designers Lucy Sims, Dheeraj Aror a DTP Designers Dheeraj Singh, Vijay Kandwal Picture Researchers Rituraj Singh, Sakshi Saluja Assistant Production Editor Abi Maxwell Senior Production Controller Inderjit Bhullar Managing Editors Jonathan Melmoth, Monica Saigal Managing Art Editors Diane Pe yton Jones, Romi Chakrabo rty Delhi Creative Heads Glenda Fernandes, Malavika T a lukder Publishing Manager Francesca Y ou ng Creative Director Helen Senior Publishing Director Sarah Larter First American Edition, 2021 Published in the United States by DK Publishing 1450 Br oadway , Suite 801, New Y ork, NY 10018 Copyright 2021 Dorling Kindersley Limited DK, a Division of P eng uin Random House LLC 21 22 23 24 25 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 001321060Jan/2021 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under the copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be repr oduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission o f the copyright owner . Published in Great Britain by Dorling Kindersley Limited A catalog record for this book is available from the Library o f Congress. ISBN 978-0-7440-2653-5 DK books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk for sales promotions, premiums, fund-r aising, or educational use. For details, contact: DK Publishing Special Mark ets, 1450 Br oadway , Suite 801, New Y ork, NY 10018 SpecialSales@dk.com Printed and bound in China For the curious www.dk.com This book was made with Forest Stewardship Council certified paperone small step in DK s commitment to a sustainable future. For more inf ormation go to www .dk .com/our -green-pledge

C ephalaspis H elicoprion M egalodon F rom water to land T iktaalik M etoposaurus D imetrodon V ar anus priscus I chthyosaurs M osasaurus Z arafasaur a D einosuchus T itanoboa P terosaurs W hat is a dinosaur? E odromaeus S tegosaurus V el ociraptor D einocheirus I guanodon P aras aurolophus S auropods B orealopelta P achycephalosaurus T r iceratops P sittacosaurus T yr annosaurus S pinosaurus T he asteroid A rchaeopteryx P horusrhacos M egazostrodon P latybelodon I ce ages M egaloceros M ammuthus S milodon G lyptodon C anis dirus M egatherium E arly humans E xtinction A ll together G lossary I ndex A cknowledgments

Figuring out exactly where life came from is one of science s most challenging problems. Early Earth was very hot, and there was little oxygen. Scientists generally agree that life began in the water and that all life evolved from tiny microbes. Early Ea rth was extremely hot and c ove red wi th volcanoes and lava . It was also blanket ed in gas clouds that helped to create the atmosphere . Fo r hundreds of millions of years , e arly E arth was bombar ded by asteroids and meteors . T h ey blast ed countless crat ers in the ground. Th e moon f o rmed during a collision bet wee n Ear th and another small planet , called Th eia. T h e debr is f r om this impact bec ame the moon.

Lif e may have b egun around de ep-se a hydrothermal ve nts. T h ese pump out scalding-hot wat er that is rich in minerals f r om deep within the E arth. Stro matolites are rocks f o rmed by blue-gree n algae , w hich may have b een among the Earth s first lif e -f o rms. T h e oldest stromatolit e f os sils are 3.5 billion years ol d. Origi n of life How life began remains one of the most difficult questions to answer . A flash of lightning may have spark ed life into existence, or a chemical reaction underwater may have caused it. Another theory is that tiny microbes were brought to Earth on meteors. Wa ter playe d a crucial role in creating the perf e ct conditions to su pport lif e. As E arth coole d, wa ter condens ed a nd f or med huge oceans .

From single-celled bacteria to gigantic mammals, organisms come in all shapes and sizes. The main types of life ca n be grouped into animals, plants, fungi, and microorganisms, all of which are separ ated further into smaller families. All o f these gro ups have existed for hundreds of millions of years. Microorga nisms and fung i Microorganisms are so small that you can only see them with a microscope. Some, such as the algae called diatoms, have just one cell. Fungi include microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, along with larger organisms, such as mushrooms and toadstools. D i a t o m To adstool Wa lchia tree 99.9% of all species th at h ave ever lived are now exti nct. Einiosaurus

Plants The first plants lived in water , but about 500 million years ago they began to grow on land as well. Prehistoric plants, such as Sciadophyton, played an important role in helping to pump oxygen into the atmosphere. Evolut ion Two 19th-century naturalists, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wall ace, separately came up with the theory of evolution. This theor y explains how animals and plants change and develop into different forms over many generations. Animals The first animals appeared more than 500 million years ago. Fossil discoveries tell us that some prehistoric animals, such as the frilled dinosaur Einiosaurus or the rhinoceros-like Uintatherium, were very different to anything alive today. Sciad ophyton Anh anguera Uintath erium D r e p a n a s p i s Th e first amphib ians to walk on land evolve d f r om fish. B u t t e r c u p

Not all prehistoric animals lived at the same time. Ear th s ancient history is divided into chunks called eras, which are further separated into periods. These create a timeline that helps us to understand which animals lived together and when they were alive. Bacter ia E orap tor Brachio saurus Alx asaurus Basilo saurus First l ife The earliest living organisms were microscopic bacteria. Their ancient fossils are at least 3.5 billion years old. Permian Reptiles continued to flourish and they became the dominant land animals in the Pe rmian, but this period ended with the largest mass extinction of all time. Triassic The Pe rmian extinction led to the evolution of many new animals, including ichthyosaurs in the sea, pter osaurs in the sky , and dinosaurs on the land. Jurassic The first truly enormous dinosaurs appeared during this period. Tiny mammals lived in their shadows, scurrying along the ground and climbing up trees. Cretaceou s Dinosaurs dominated the Cretaceous, but everything changed with the impact of an enormous asteroid. The first flowers also appeared. Paleogene Life slowly recovered after the devastating effects of the asteroid, and mammals flourished. In the seas, the mighty marine reptiles were replaced by early whales. 3,500 542 MY A 299252 MY A 252201 MY A 2011 46 MY A 146 66 MY A 3 MY A Early Ea rth Pa leozoic Era Mesoz oic Era Cenoz oic Era MYA M illion yea rs ago Key