So you've discovered the world of the Paleo nerd, a world as savage bizarre and amazing as the world that the ancient beasts we obsess over once inhabited. Wether this was done to try to share a friends interest, rekindle a childhood fashion or purely by accident is up to you but if your here you've probably decided to stick with it and I commend you for that. A few of the more Paleontologically aware people reading this for some reason are probably asking, "Lordza (please call me that) why are you doing this, after all nobody interested would be this inept." well you are wrong, no offense. The reason I came up with this blog is when I did the draw a T.Rex experiment on some of my friends, the experiment is to find a random person(or a friend) and ask them to draw a Tyrannosaur, sadly even people who have heard me ramble on and on about the science of Jurassic Park drew a upright tail dragging lizardy creature that belonged in the 1800s and some of my friends did not believe T.rex may have had feathers. If I ruled the world I would break into these people's houses and deliver them a book by Bob Bakker or Thomas Holtz (Any book will do preferrably
The Dinosaur Heresies or
The Most Complete Up To Date Guide to Dinosaurs) with a large sticky note saying"READ!".
Sadly this approach is illegal and an invasion of personal privacy so I will have to settle with using this blog instead. Anyways enough with the rambling let's get some basic facts on.
Deinonychus a relative of Velociraptor
Dinosaurs is a term used to describe a four limbed Mesozoic archosaur (A reptile group) with legs straight under the body and related to either Iguanadon or Megalosaurus, pterodactyls and marine reptiles are not dinosaurs, nor is dimetrodon and if you are really stupid wooly mammoths are not either. Dinosaurs lived during the mesozoic era which lasted around 186 million years, the three periods in the era are the Triassic: First Jurassic: Middle and Cretaceous:Last The Mesozoic ended 66-65 million years ago
Triassic:
The Barren Triassic was when the dinosaurs first evolved, all the continents were lumped together into pangea and the world was recovering from a mass extinction of huge hairy lizard monster that evolved into mammals called synapsids. During this time the few dinosaurs alive were small and unimpressive like the Coelophysis above and usually got eaten by larger more agressive species especially their dick cousin's the Rauisuchians.
Look at that Douche, look how Bakker Damn smug he is.
Rauisuchians were kinda like that one uncle/cousin who would always pick on you at family reunions and no one would do crap about it because they were special, however like that cousin they were
quite slow witted meaning that the nimble brainy dinosaurs eventually defeated them and the remaining synapsids and claimed the earth until...
Another Extinction.
Jurassic:
After surviving another extinction and the continents splitting and the climate becoming wetter and more lush yet still staying dry, the continents split into Gondwana and Laurasia, the dinosaurs being the largest things on the planet grew and started diversifying, this started with the plant eaters like the stegosaurus above, note Stegosaurus and Brontosaurus (Really apatosaurus, but you probably may not know that and by the way did not live in a swamp) and the spitter (Dilophosaurus and jurassic park was really inaccurate about it) lived during this time. Sauropods (Long necks) and Stegosaurus were the dominant species at the time due to their size and were spread through the land despite their brains which were tiny even by dinosaurs standards. After the plant eaters grew larger the carnosaurs followed suit, creating monsters like allosaurus below.
Allosaurus was the T.rex of it's day and is nicknamed the lion of the jurassic, however the actual relatives of T.rex were living under it's feet. Tyrannosaurs evolved from small feathered carnivorous dinosaurs who were sick of being small and after the allosaurs and carnosaurs died took over, yet it's other relatives were starting to take to the skies.
These protobirds like Archeopteryx and Anchiornis probably clumsily glided from tree to tree hunting insects and lizard avoiding the jaws of their larger cousins like Allosaurus. Coincedentally these protobirds also evolved into Velociraptor and Troodon. Surprisingly at the end of the jurassic there was no mass extinction though the climate did cool down and some of the larger dinosaurs specifically the sauropods( long necks) started to disappear in the northern hemisphere.
Cretaceous:
This is is the era when the big guys like T. Rex, Velociraptor and Triceratops lived, at this point in time the continents resembled today's except even more separated and dinosaurs were starting to dwindle in diversity, during this time the climate cooled but there were still no permanent ice apes.This was the time the ceratopsians and Tyrannosaurs, and Dromeasaurs (Raptors) started to appear, almost all the stegosaurs and allosaurs were dead due to being functionally retarded and the sauropods were almost gone in the north for similar reasons leaving a evolutionary arms race for the position of dominant species, through an evolutionary tactic called killing and mating.
Tasteful
Eventually a asteroid/meteor got mad at the dinosaurs for having too much sex and crashed into the earth killing them, jk this isn't the bible so this wasn't punishments for the dinosaurs sins but as I said a huge rock from space crashed into the gulf of Mexico 65 million years ago causing the sky to be covered in dust killing off most of the plant life and (I think it) triggered tidal waves killing off all dinosaurs except birds the end.
Hopefully you enjoyed this, I'll talk about more stuff later but here are some facts
1. Dinosaurs are actually thought to be semi warm blooded rather than cold blooded like modern reptiles.
2. They are not big lizards or giant birds but rather birds are undersized dinosaurs.
3. Most of the meat eaters had feathers.
4.All four legged dinosaurs ate plants but not all two legged ones ate meat.
5.There is more time between T.rex and Stegosaurus than T.rex and you.
6. No humans lived with dinosaurs.
7. Neither did wooly mammoths or Sabretooth cats.
8. There are no swimming dinosaurs or flying dinosaurs (Except birds)
