Ben Torrent - Dinosaurs: Fascinating Facts and 101 Amazing Pictures About These Prehistoric Animals

PREHISTORY WHAT ARE DINOSAURS? Did these animals ever meet? No, since each of them lived in a different time or region of the world. Riveting Reptiles Dinosaurs are widely considered the most fascinating animals. Amongst others they included enormous herbivores as well as tiny predators the size of a chicken egg. Nearly all were covered in scales, and their young hatched out of eggs a characteristic trait of reptiles. Dinosaurs walked on either two or four legs and were reptiles just like turtles, lizards, snakes and crocodiles. WHEN DINOSAURS RULED In the history of the Earth, the age of the dinosaurs is known as the Mesozoic era. WHEN DINOSAURS RULED In the history of the Earth, the age of the dinosaurs is known as the Mesozoic era.

It began 245 million years ago and ended with their extinction nearly 160 million years later. The Mesozoic era can be divided into the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. THE TRIASSIC PERIOD During the Triassic period, the Earths continents were joined together in a great landmass we call Pangaea. Deep within this supercontinent, the heat generated far from the surrounding oceans created the perfect conditions for life to thrive near vast expanses of shallow water flowing out of the mountains. Growing amid lush horsetails and ferns, coniferous trees became food for Prosauropods the ancestors of giant herbivorous dinosaurs (Sauropods). Some carnivores hunted for their prey near the coastal swamps that became death traps for many unwary animals.

THE JURASSIC PERIOD Near the end of the Triassic period, Pangaea began breaking up, a process that continued throughout the Jurassic period. New lands and seas were created, giving birth in turn to lush vegetation: cycads, tree ferns, ginkgos and conifers. Reptiles dominated the air, water and land. Towering over this ecosystem were gigantic dinosaurs, which had nothing to fear from even the most dangerous predators. THE CRETACEOUS PERIOD Around 145 million years ago, the configuration of continents as we know them today began to take shape. The climate at the time was warm and humid.

Flowers began to appear amidst the dense greenery and with them countless insects. This was a period of incredible diversity for dinosaur species. Some were crowned with bony growths that allowed them to emit loud calls. At the end of the Cretaceous period, lived one of the greatest predators of the time the Tyrannosaurus. UNCOVERING THE PAST From bone to stone? Our primary source of knowledge about dinosaurs comes from the fossils that palaeontologists have unearthed on every continent around the world. The most common discoveries involve bones and teeth.

If an animal died near water and was not eaten by scavengers, its skeleton might be preserved as a fossil. Likewise, prints could sometimes become fossilised when imprinted in wet sand. Bones, covered by layers of sediment and exposed to water and millions of years of chemical processes, are transformed into stone. As rock erodes, fossils are uncovered, and the work of palaeontologists begins. Their challenge is to find out what animal the bones belonged to. What does a palaeontologist do? Palaeontologists study prehistoric, extinct plants and animals. What does a palaeontologist do? Palaeontologists study prehistoric, extinct plants and animals.

Each discovered fossil provides another clue about the appearance or behaviour of its original owner. Dinosaur reconstruction requires painstaking and detailed work. Uncovering fossils trapped in rock can take years. Cleaning the bones and using them to rebuild a skeleton is just as time-consuming. A fossilised Stegosaurus exposed after the removal of sediment layers. A reassembled skeleton with its ridge of bony plates.

Jigsaw puzzle The palaeontologists who discovered the first Stegosaurus bones believed that the 28-inch plates covered the dinosaurs body, just like tiles cover a roof hence the name Stegosaurus, which means roof lizard. Today we know that the plates stood up along a ridge on the dinosaurs back. In the beginning Enormous bones were discovered by humans long before they knew about dinosaurs. Popular opinion believed them to be the remains of giants and other strange creatures. One of the first dinosaur discoveries was made in 1825 by Gideon Mantell, an English fossil collector. His find was a set of enormous teeth resembling those of an iguana.

Mantell named their owner Iguanodon (which means iguana tooth). Nearly 200 years ago, it was believed that Iguanodon had a horn on its nose. Today we know that this spike was the dinosaurs thumb. Bone of contention A majority of the most popular dinosaurs were unearthed in North America. The first find was a Hadrosaurus also known as a duck-billed dinosaur.