The History Of Dinosaurs
The dinosaurs were reptiles that appeared about 230 million years ago.
It's believed that they
had scaly skin and some ate plants and others ate
meat. Scientists don't know whether or not the
dinosaurs were cold blooded,
but they think the smaller ones were warm blooded, and the large
ones were
cold-blooded. In this report you'll learn about the earliest dinosaurs, the
kinds of
dinosaurs, and how the dinosaurs died.
There are two main
groups of the earliest dinosaurs: Thesaurischian, and the
ornithischian
First I'll tell you about the Saurischian. The Saurischian
were the first main group of dinosaurs.
The Saurischian had lizard like
hip joints. In this group there is the Theropoda. These weird
dinosaurs were
meat eaters that walked on their hind legs. Also there was the Sauropoda.
The
Sauropoda were the plant eating dinosaurs that walked on all four
legs.
The second main kind of dinosaurs were the Ornithischian, which had
bird like hip joints. There
is only one group belonging to this group and
that is the ornithopoda. The Ornithopoda were
plant-eating dinosaurs that
walked on two legs. There were also the armored and horned
dinosaurs, which
were also plant eaters.
There were many, many different kinds of
dinosaurs. Some of them are the Brachiosaurus, the
Stegosaurus, the
Triceratops, the Tyrannosaurus, and the Zizhongosaurus.
All of the
dinosaurs are in one of two major groups. Plant eaters or meat eaters. Some
plant
eaters are the Saltasaurus, the Kritosaurus, and the Datousaurus. Some
Meat eaters are the
Chilantaisaurus, the Poekilopleuron, and probably the
most terrifying one of all, the
Tyrannosaurus.
During the
Carboniferous Period (360 to 286 million years ago), dense tropical forests were
concentrated along the equator. Decaying vegetation, compressed by overlying
deposits of sand and mud, was gradually converted into coal. Coal deposits of
Illinios, the Appalachians, Britain and Germany were originally formed in a
continuous band which was dispersed when the continents drifted
apart.
The Mesozoic Era lasted from 245 until 65 million years ago. In
the sea, marine communities began to assume a modern composition of molluscs and
other invertebrates. On land, dinosaurs dominated faunas, and the first
flowering plants appeared. At the beginning of the Mesozoic, all of the earth's
continents were joined as the supercontinent Pangea.
Some dinosaurs can
swim and some can fly. The ones that swim have large, flat arms, or
flippers,
that help them through the water. The ones that fly usually have two legs and
huge
wings that can have a 30 foot wingspan!
There are many theories
about how the dinosaurs died. The most populaur one is that the
weather
became cooler, and the dinosaurs had no feathers or fur to protect them against
the
changing weather. Others are like a star exploded, but then how could
some other speacies have
lived. Another one is that an astioriod hit the
earth and made the land dark for three, or so ,
years. So only the animals
that could live on nuts or rotten plants could live. They also think
that
they have the rock.
The dinosaurs came to rise in the earlier
part of the Triassic period, and ecologically dominated
our planet until the
late cretaceous. Dinosaurs evolved from reptiles, and birds evolved from
the
dinosaurs (to clear up an erroneous myth circulating out there, the
dinosaurs did not evolve into
birds. The birds came from the
dinosaurs).
Dinosaurs have been divided into two main
groups:
Saurischians, or "lizard-hipped" dinosaurs, and Ornithchians, or
"bird-hipped" dinosaurs
Saurischians, in my opinion, are the better of
the two groups. They include all dinosaurian
predators and the sauropods, or
animals such as Apatosaurus and other very large animals. The
ornithchians
essentially include everyone else; Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Ankylosaurus, and
all of
the other herbivores.
The saurischians are divided further into
the theropods (animals that walked on two feet), and
the sauropods, as
mentioned above. Further information about these animals can be found in
my
two dinosaur databases, below. By now, most people are beginning to believe that
dinosaurs
were warm-blooded. Others believe that the dinosaurs were
cold-blooded, and then there is the"muddy middle", or those who believe that the
dinosaurs were some of both. This is known as
the endo-ecto question, which
asks whether the dinosaurs were endotherms (warm-blooded) or
ectotherms
cold-blooded. Both viewpoints have very competitive arguments and are still
being
debated among paleontologists. By 136 million years ago, the end of the
Jurassic period and the
beginning of the Cretaceous, the break-up of Pangea
was well underway. North America and
Eurasia had begun to separate as had
South America and Africa.
Dinosaurs still dominated the land but by the
end of the Cretaceous they would be wiped out by
another mass extinction. By
the middle of the Cretaceous flowering plants had developed
and began to
dominate other forms of plant life.
One of the great mysteries in science
is the extinction of the dinosaurs at the end of the
Mesozoic Era some 65
million years ago. Who or more likely what caused it is unknown and a
subject
of great debate.
Scientists believe that climatic changes might be
responsible for most of these extinctions. There
is evidence that shows the
temperature dropped at the end of the Mesozoic and the sea levels
fell. A
sudden change in climate might affect the growth of plants and the dinosaur's
food supply.
One of the most intriguing theories suggested for dinosaur
extinction is the asteroid theory. In
the 1980's the father-son team of Luis
and Walter Alvarez discovered a layer of Iridium in
the
Cretaceous-Tentiary boundary. Iridium is rare on Earth, but abundant
in meteorites. The
Alvarezs' suggested that a huge asteroid or comet,
perhaps miles in diameter, hit the Earth at
that time. The result of such an
impact would be an enormous explosion that would throw dust
clouds into the
sky darkening the planet. Massive forest fires, triggered by the hit, would
add
smoke to the sky. This would cool the planet causing the climatic changes
observed.
A crater, now worn down and partly under the ocean, was found
along the Mexican Yucatan
Peninsula. It's appearance coincides nicely
with the Cretacious-Tertiary boundary. NASA
scientists estimate that the
asteroid that struck would have been about 6 to 12 miles in diameter.
The
Crater is about 130 miles across.
Triceratops was the three-horned
ceratopsian dinosaur that was widespread in North America at the end of the
Cretaceous Period. Its enormous frill, a modification of the bones from the rear
part of the skull, included three horns that served to protect the front of the
body. This peaceful plant eater was probably a mainstay in the diet of
Tyrannosaurus.
Tyrannosaurus, the most famous of the carnivorous
dinosaurs, weighed up to 7 tons. Its serrated, banana-sized teeth were used to
crush the flesh and bone of its prey. With massive head and jaws that measured
more than 5 feet in length, and a body length of up to 50 feet, adult
tyrannosaurs were the largest of the predatory dinosaurs. They were also the
last, living only at the very end of the Cretaceous Period, 65 million years
ago.
Brachiosaurus was the largest and heaviest dinosaur known from the
Morrison Formation of Utah. This supergiant weighed as much as 80 tons, or the
combined weights of 15 large elephants. Ultrasaurus, a supergiant from the
Morrison Formation of Colorado that is probably a species of Brachiosaurus, may
have weighed as much as 100 tons. Brachiosaurus is the giraffe-necked sauropod,
with tall front legs and a long neck designed to reach far above the ground.
Bones of this Late Jurassic giant have also been found in eastern
Africa.
Stegosaurus, the plated dinosaur, was one of the major
plant-eaters of the Jurassic Period. Most paleontologists believe its triangular
bony plates were set in two rows along the backbone in a staggered arrangement.
The function of the plates is controversial. Perhaps they were for protection,
but some paleontologists think that they may have collected solar radiation for
thermal regulation.
Hadrosaurs, are two subfamilies of hadrosaurs, the
Lambeosaurinae, which have a crest on the skull (like the skull on the right at
the top of the page), and the Hadrosaurinae, which lacked the crest (like the
skull at the left). The crest on a lambeosaur's skull contains the nasal
passages, which "looped" through the crest and often formed sizeable chambers
before passing into the airway.
Parasaurolophus, is extremely rare and is
known from less than six specimens, making it more rare than Tyrannosaurus rex.
Parasaurolophus lived during the Late Cretaceous, about 75 million years ago.
Parasaurolophus belongs to a group of plant-eating dinosaurs known as
hadrosaurs, or duck-billed dinosaurs. Some hadrosaurs, including
Parasaurolophus, are noted for unusual nasal cavities that are expanded into
head crests. Many of these crests took on truly bizarre
shapes.
Utahraptor, was about 20 feet long and weighed about half a ton.
It lived during the Late Early Cretaceous period, about 125 million years ago.
It was a meat-eater and used its large, razor-sharp claws to cut into its
prey.
Dinosaurs varied greatly in size, ranging in weight from 4 to 6
pounds , in the case of Compsognathus, and up to 160,000 pounds, in the case of
Brachiosaurus. Dinosaurs have traditionally been assumed to have been
cold-blooded, but in recent years, several different lines of evidence have been
interpreted as indicating that dinosaurs may have been warm-blooded like birds
and mammals.
The reproductive means of most dinosaurs is unknown, however
fossils of dinosaur eggs have been discovered in Brazil, portugal and Tanzania,
as well as the United States.
Dinosaur diets varied greatly. Many,
including some of the largest species, were herbivores, consuming vast
quantities of vegetation to sustain their large bodies. Some, such as the great
Tyrannosaurus rex, were carnivores, preying voraciously on other Dinosaurs and
keeping primitive mammals small and insignificant. Although Dinosaurs reigned
for around 140 million years, their extinction is theorized to have come
suddenly. Many scientists insist that an astroid that hit the Earth caused an
enormous cloud of dust, striking at the food chain. By killing many plants, this
asteroid may have doomed the Dinosaurs.
In 1990 a scientist called Alan
Hildebrand was looking over some old geophysical data that had been recorded by
a group of geophysicists searching for oil in the Yucatan region of Mexico.
Within the data he found evidence of what could have been an impact site. What
he 'found' was a ring structure 180km in diameter which was called Chicxulub.
The location of this structure was just off the northwest tip of the Yucatan
Peninsula. The crater has been dated (using the 40Ar/39Ar method) as being 65
million years old. The size of the crater is comparable to that which would have
been caused by an impacting body with a diameter of roughly 10km.So we now have
some of the proof of the asteroid theory. We know that a chondritic meteorite
with a diameter of 10km contains enough iridium to cause a spike. We also know
that about 65 million years ago there was an impact of a large object. The big
question is what were the results, and how did they effect the
dinosaurs.
The impact basin is buried by several hundred meters of
sediment, hiding it from view. This image shows the basin viewed obliquely from
approximately 60° above the surface looking north, with artificial lighting from
the south.
The Cenozoic Era, which began 65 million years ago and
continues today, is characterized by the evolutionary radiation of mammals and
birds. The continents have slowly drifted apart through Cenozoic time to assume
their current positions.