The Age of Dinosaurs

252 Ma – 65 Ma60 items

deep timepalaeontology
The Age of Dinosaurs

186 million years

The Mesozoic, from the worst extinction in the rocks to the asteroid that closed it. Dinosaurs start as a side branch of small, fast reptiles, take over the land and end as birds. Around them: the first mammals, the pterosaurs, the great marine reptiles and the first flowers.

How to read it

  • Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous — the three periods, as bands along the top

  • Four fossil beds — Ischigualasto, the Morrison, the Jehol and Hell Creek — each with the animals found in it nested inside

  • Every animal is pinned to the place its fossil was dug up, on today’s map

Threads to follow

  • feathers and flight

  • mammals — from the survivors of 252 million years ago

  • oceans — ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, mosasaurs

  • extinction and earth

Dates are in millions of years ago and carry the uncertainty of the rocks they come from; period boundaries follow the International Chronostratigraphic Chart.

Items

  1. Triassic

    ≈ 50.5 million years

  2. The Great Dying

    Meishan section D, Changxing, Zhejiang

  3. Lystrosaurus inherits the Earth

    Karoo Basin, near Bethulie, Free State

  4. Dinosaur cousins leave footprints

    Holy Cross Mountains, Poland

  5. Reptiles go back to sea

    Majiashan, Chaohu, Anhui

  6. Nyasasaurus: the oldest dinosaur?

    Manda Beds, Ruhuhu Basin, Tanzania

  7. Carnian Pluvial Episode

    ≈ 2 million years

  8. Ischigualasto Formation

    ≈ 5.5 million years · Ischigualasto Provincial Park, San Juan, Argentina

  9. Herrerasaurus

    Ischigualasto Provincial Park, San Juan, Argentina

  10. Eoraptor

    Ischigualasto Provincial Park, San Juan, Argentina

  11. Eudimorphodon

    Cene, near Bergamo

  12. Manicouagan impact

    Manicouagan crater, Quebec

  13. Coelophysis at Ghost Ranch

    Ghost Ranch, New Mexico

  14. Plateosaurus

    Trossingen, Baden-Württemberg

  15. Triassic–Jurassic extinction

  16. Jurassic

    ≈ 58.3 million years

  17. Morganucodon

    Fissure-fill quarries near Bridgend, Glamorgan

  18. Mary Anning’s plesiosaur

    Lyme Regis, Dorset

  19. The Central Atlantic opens

  20. Cryolophosaurus

    Mount Kirkpatrick, Antarctica

  21. Dilophosaurus

    Navajo Nation, near Tuba City, Arizona

  22. Ichthyosaurs born at sea

    Holzmaden, Baden-Württemberg

  23. Kulindadromeus

    Kulinda, Zabaykalsky Krai

  24. Megalosaurus

    Stonesfield, Oxfordshire

  25. Anchiornis in colour

    Jianchang County, Liaoning

  26. Juramaia

    Jianchang County, Liaoning

  27. Morrison Formation

    ≈ 9 million years

  28. Giraffatitan at Tendaguru

    Tendaguru Hill, Lindi Region, Tanzania

  29. Brontosaurus

    Como Bluff, Wyoming

  30. Allosaurus trap

    Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry, Utah

  31. Sophie the Stegosaurus

    Red Canyon Ranch, near Shell, Wyoming

  32. Archaeopteryx

    Solnhofen limestone quarries, Bavaria

  33. Cretaceous

    ≈ 77.1 million years

  34. Jehol Biota

    ≈ 15 million years · Western Liaoning

  35. Montsechia

    Montsec range, Lleida

  36. Sinosauropteryx

    Sihetun, near Beipiao, Liaoning

  37. Yutyrannus

    Beipiao, Liaoning

  38. Iguanodons of Bernissart

    Sainte-Barbe colliery, Bernissart

  39. Repenomamus eats a dinosaur

    Beipiao, Liaoning

  40. Microraptor

    Chaoyang, Liaoning

  41. Deinonychus

    Cloverly Formation, near Bridger, Montana

  42. Patagotitan

    La Flecha ranch, Chubut

  43. Western Interior Seaway

    ≈ 30 million years · Western Interior Seaway, rough extent on today’s map

  44. Spinosaurus

    Kem Kem beds, south-east Morocco

  45. Pteranodon over the seaway

    Smoky Hill Chalk, Gove County, Kansas

  46. Maiasaura, the good mother

    Egg Mountain, near Choteau, Montana

  47. The Fighting Dinosaurs

    Tugrikin Shiree, Mongolia

  48. The egg thief was a parent

    Ukhaa Tolgod, Mongolia

  49. Quetzalcoatlus

    Big Bend National Park, Texas

  50. Majungasaurus, the cannibal

    Berivotra, Mahajanga Basin, Madagascar

  51. Hell Creek Formation

    ≈ 1.15 million years · Hell Creek, near Jordan, Montana

  52. The Maastricht jaw

    Sint-Pietersberg, Maastricht

  53. Sue the Tyrannosaurus rex

    Near Faith, South Dakota

  54. The Wonderchicken

    Quarry near Eben-Emael, Belgium

  55. Grass in dinosaur dung

    Pisdura, Chandrapur district, Maharashtra

  56. Triceratops

    Hell Creek, near Jordan, Montana

  57. Deccan Traps eruptions

    ≈ 800 thousand years · Deccan Traps, western India

  58. The first million years

    ≈ 1.04 million years · Corral Bluffs, Colorado Springs

  59. Chicxulub impact

    Chicxulub crater, Yucatán

  60. Tanis: the first hour

    Tanis site, Bowman County, North Dakota