Dinosaurs

The Jurassic period was a time when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, and it began about 199 million years ago!

At the start of the Jurassic period, there was just one huge continent, called Pangaea. And with no ice caps, sea levels were much higher than they are today, and much of Earth’s surface was therefore underwater.

But then they all started merrily drifting away from each other when volcanoes started erupting all over the place, which created smaller pieces of land. There were tectonic plates that started to play crash and bang with each other, and mountains started to form, like the Andes Mountains.

When this happened, different animals started evolving on the smaller continents and the weather became more like a tropical forest, where it was really, really dry in the Triassic period. Scientists believe that there was no ice at the Polar Regions during this time.

During the Jurassic period, about 150 million years ago, birds became like small flying dinosaurs. In the warmer areas, the plants were mainly ferns, but in the colder areas, you would mostly find pine trees.

The Jurassic period lasted about 55 million years. During this time, loads of different types of animals appeared like new types of dinosaurs, mammals which were all the size of rats, and reptiles.

The Jurassic period was certainly a dangerous time! There were meat-eaters like the Allosaurus who ruled, and flying dinosaurs like the Dimorphodon ruled the sky. Other dinosaurs that lived during the Jurassic period were the Megalosaurus, Apatosaurus, Archaeopteryx, Brachiosaurus, Compsognathus, Ornitholestes and the Stegosaurus. They were certainly a bunch of fearsome dinosaurs!

With more water around, sea life sprang to life too. The masters of the seas were the plesiosaurs, who had long necks and paddle-like fins. There were also giant marine crocodiles, sharks, and rays.