Humans did not live with dinosaurs; many millions of years separate the last (non-avian) dinosaurs and the first humans. Dinosaurs first appeared in the Triassic Period of the Mesozoic Era, and became extinct 66 million years ago. The first modern humans (Homo sapiens) appeared around 315,000 years ago; at least 65 million years after the last dinosaurs.
Read on for interesting facts on dinosaurs and humans (and why they never crossed paths)…
Alligators are not dinosaurs, but they, along with the other crocodilians, are the closest living relatives of dinosaurs (apart from birds, which are dinosaurs). Although alligators are neither dinosaurs, nor the descendants of dinosaurs, they are more closely-related to dinosaurs (and therefore birds) than they are to other living groups of reptiles, such as snakes and turtles.
To understand why alligators are not dinosaurs, and how the two groups of animals are related, we need to go back millions of years in the reptile family tree to the Mesozoic Era…
Gallimimus was a mid-sized theropod dinosaur that lived in what is now Mongolia during the late Cretaceous. It is the best-known and largest of the ornithomimids (“bird-mimics”), a family of dinosaurs named for their resemblance to living birds such as ostriches. With a slender, lightweight body and powerful legs, Gallimimus was built for speed and is one of the fastest-known dinosaurs.
T rex, or Tyrannosaurus rex, is a species of carnivorous, theropod dinosaur that lived in what is now the western United States during the Late Cretaceous. With an estimated length of up to 13 meters / 43 feet, T. rex is one of the largest land predators that ever lived. T-rex lived alongside several other well-known dinosaurs, including Triceratops and Ankylosaurus.
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Tyrannosaurus rex dinosaur facts, with pictures and information. An in-depth guide to this famous Cretaceous Period predator.
Dilophosaurus facts, pictures and information. How does the real-life dinosaur compare to its Jurassic Park counterpart?
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List of cool dinosaurs with pictures and facts. Discover the coolest dinosaurs of the Mesozoic Era!
A list of the top-20 most famous dinosaurs, with pictures and facts. Discover some of the most popular dinosaurs and find out how they lived.