When Did The Dinosaurs Live

Dinosaurs lived a long, long time ago in the era called Mesozoic, which can bed divided into the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaeceous period.

About 230 million years ago during the Triassic period there was only on huge connected land mass. The climate got warmer and giant ferns and conifers dominated the landscape. Small carnivorous dinosaurs like Saltopus but also bigger vegetarian ones like Plateosaurus roamed the countryside looking for food.

Saltopus

Plateosaurus

At about 200 million years ago in the Jurassic period some continents broke away from the land mass. It got warmer and warmer and this humid climate caused extensive forests on Earth's surface. This led to a rapid spread of the dinosaurs and many different types evolved. There were huge vegetarian dinosaurs like Brachiosaurus but also big predatory dinosaurs like Allosaurus.

Brachiosaurus

Allosaurus

Some of the vegetarian dinosaurs had spines and comb-like outgrowths, to defend themselves against their enemies like Stegosaurus. In this period Archaeopteryx appeared, who indeed had wings, but like a dinosaur also claws and a jaw with sharp teeth.

Stegosaurus

Archaeopteryx

During the Cretaeceous period about 100 million years ago the land mass finally broke up in individual continents and the climate became increasingly influenced by the four seasons. Ash, sycamore, magnolia, giant sequoia trees and various flowering plants soon dominated the landscape. On the different continents many new types of dinosaurs evolved, including the famous dinosaurs from the film series Jurassic Park like the king of carnivorous dinosaurs, the Tyrannosaurus, the smaller Velociraptor and rhino-like herbivores like the Triceratops.

Tyrannosaurus

Velociraptor

Triceratops