Diplodocus
Diplodocus was the longer, slimmer, more stretched-out sauropod, famous for its especially long neck and whiplike tail. It is one of the longest land animals and generally more slender in build.
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Master Timeline
Styracosaurus
Styracosaurus was a striking horned ancient cousin of Triceratops, showing that ceratopsids branched into different styles long before the dinosaurs came to an end.
Toothed Birds Go Extinct
At the K–Pg boundary, birds were already diverse, but most of that Late Cretaceous variety died out, leaving only a small toothless slice of the bird world to continue.
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George Orwell
George Orwell wrote about how corruption starts when language is twisted, facts are manipulated, and authority demands loyalty over reality.
Pteranodons Emerge
Pteranodon was one of the great soaring pterosaurs of the Late Cretaceous, but it was only one branch in a much larger pterosaur story.
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The Last Stegosaurus: Wuerhosaurus
Wuerhosaurus shows that the stegosaur branch survived longer than many people realize, but not all the way to the end of the dinosaurs.
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The Last Theropods
At the end of the Cretaceous, theropods were still a varied and successful branch, not a single fading form.
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The Last Sauropods
The last sauropods were titanosaurs—the final surviving long-necked dinosaurs, still ranging from giants to smaller and even armored forms at the end of the Cretaceous.
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The Last Ornithischians
Even near the end, ornithischians remained a diverse and successful branch of plant-eating dinosaurs.
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The Last Pterosaurs
The last pterosaurs were not all the same, and they were not simply faded leftovers.
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Tyrannosaurus Rex
T. rex lived in western North America about 69 to 66 million years ago. All dinosaurs, except potentially three lines of birds, went extinct 66 million years ago, when the Chicxulub asteroid hit.
Proceratosaurus (T.Rex ancestor)
Proceratosaurus had the same general tyrannosaur-style look: a big head, long tail, strong hind legs, short forelimbs, and a built-for-biting predator shape: D-shaped front teeth and a crest on top of the skull.
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Dinosauria Emerge: True Dinosaurs!
Before the famous branches split into predators, long-necks, horned giants, and birds, there was one early ancestral species. One population eventually led to all dinosaurs: Allosaurus, Styracosaurus, and Diplodocus.
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Triceratops
Triceratops, one of the last great horned dinosaurs, roamed western North America at the very end of the Age of Dinosaurs with its three horns, broad frill, and heavy four-legged build.
Zuniceratops
Zuniceratops shows an earlier stage in the evolution of the horns and frill later made famous by Triceratops.
Bashanosaurus primitivus
Bashanosaurus primitivus is one of the earliest known stegosaurs and a strong candidate for representing an early form close to the ancestry of later plated dinosaurs like Stegosaurus.
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Stegosaurus
Stegosaurus is the classic plated dinosaur most people picture: large back plates, a small head, and a spiked tail used for defense. It lived late in the Jurassic.
Neoaves Birds Emerge (from Neognathae)
Neoaves is the enormous living bird branch that includes all birds that are not part of the ostrich-tinamou branch and not part of the duck-chicken branch.
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Galloanserae Birds Emerge (from Neognathae)
Galloanserae is the living bird branch that includes landfowl and waterfowl: chickens, turkeys, pheasants, ducks, geese, and swans.
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Palaeognathae Birds Emerge
Palaeognathae is the living bird branch that includes ostriches, emus, cassowaries, rheas, kiwis, and tinamous.
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