Dinosaur Information Archives

Are Alligators Dinosaurs? How Crocodilians Are Related To Dinosaurs

Are Alligators Dinosaurs?

Alligators are not dinosaurs, but they, along with other crocodilians, are the closest living relatives of those giant prehistoric reptiles. Although alligators are neither dinosaurs nor the descendants of dinosaurs, they are more closely-related to dinosaurs (and therefore, modern 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…

What Is Gallimimus?

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.

Coelophysis dinosaur facts and pictures. An in-depth guide to one of the world’s first dinosaurs…

Ceratosaurus facts and pictures. Discover a mid-sized, predatory, horned dinosaur of the Jurassic Period.

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?

Dinosaur identification guide: find and identify dinosaurs by their characteristics and discover different dinosaur groups.

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.

Mesozoic Era Animals

Examples of Mesozoic Era animals include dinosaurs, pterosaurs, ammonites, sharks, plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs, mosasaurs, pseudosuchians, insects, and early mammals. Although dinosaurs were the dominant land animals of the Mesozoic Era, many other important animal groups evolved and thrived during this time.

On this page is a list of Mesozoic Era animals with pictures, facts, and links to further information…