Science
Related: About this forum"Less time separates us from Tyrannosaurus rex than separated T. rex from Stegosaurus"
You cant understand dinosaurs without a sense of time. We need to know when a dinosaur lived to comprehend how it fits into what paleontologist William Diller Matthew called lifes splendid drama. But we throw around Deep Time estimates, framed in millions of years, so often that its easy to become inured to the wider context of lifes history.
The Mesozoic Era, which lasted from about 250 million to 66 million years ago, is often called the Age of Dinosaurs. As a kid, this brought to mind one endless summer when dinosaurs flourished. And many of the books I read picked one environment from three different periods within the era to represent dinosaur life. Little Coelophysis was the canonical Triassic dinosaur; the huge sauropods and theropods of the Morrison Formation represented the Jurassic, and a Cretaceous Tyrannosaurus versus Triceratops face-off ultimately capped off the succession. With the periods juxtaposed this way, millions of years didnt seem so very long.
But lets unpack some of that scenery. Diplodocus, Apatosaurus, Allosaurus, Stegosaurus and their neighbors roamed western North America about 150 million years ago. This slice of time falls in the latter portion of the Jurassic. The traditional representatives of the latest Cretaceous sceneTyrannosaurus and Triceratopsdid not evolve until about 67 million years ago. By themselves, these dates are just labels, but think of them falling along evolutions timeline. About 83 million years separated Apatosaurus from Tyrannosaurus and Allosaurus from Triceratops. The so-called Age of Mammalswhich began when the non-avian dinosaurs were wiped outhas been going on for about 66 million years. Less time separates us from Tyrannosaurus rex than separated T. rex from Stegosaurus.
Consider how much life has changed in the past 66 million years. Archaic mammals flourished and ultimately went extinct long before anything like the worlds modern fauna appeared. Saber-fanged, knobbly-headed herbivores such as Uintatherium, lemur-like primates called adapiforms, razor-jawed carnivores known as creodonts and many other strange forms proliferated and disappeared. Even lineages familiar to us today, such as horses, rhinos and elephants, evolved and diversified and are now represented by just remnants of what once existed.
Read more: http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/dinosaur/2012/04/on-dinosaur-time/#ixzz2X6AWYEOB
Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter
Ian David
(69,059 posts)silverweb
(16,402 posts)[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]Not that I'm any less fervent about taking care of the Earth in this light, but the long perspective reinforces what Carlin said on the whole "saving the planet" subject: The Planet and her varied abundance of life forms will be just fine; it is we, as a foolish and short-sighted species, who are doing ourselves in.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Uh, among other things, so we can potentially avoid what happened to the Dinosaurs.
silverweb
(16,402 posts)[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]However, in my experience, people who go "hurr durr" aren't quite bright enough to understand any coherent answers, anyway.
demwing
(16,916 posts)But it's still too many letters. We must abbreviate again.
[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]You're right. We must.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Dergnersers!
silverweb
(16,402 posts)alfredo
(60,074 posts)your shoulder is a tiny dinosaur.
We need to grow wings and feathers.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)One of the best reasons i can think of for humans being aware of whats going on in the solar system.
alfredo
(60,074 posts)Politicalboi
(15,189 posts)<a href="http://imgur.com/020pDaJ"><img src="" title="Hosted by imgur.com"/></a>
gtar100
(4,192 posts)Hard to dispute that!
formercia
(18,479 posts)If you play the Flintstones theme song backwards, you will hear a sermon from Pat Robertson in the background.
flamin lib
(14,559 posts)pokerfan
(27,677 posts)when I saw the timeline for the first time:
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)MindMover
(5,016 posts)rpannier
(24,329 posts)Raptured the fundies and moved on
Paulie
(8,462 posts)longship
(40,416 posts)Bolo Boffin
(23,796 posts)Someone said that kangaroos were the mammals' T-Rexs because of their little forearms. And that made me think: what if that worked both ways?
What if T-Rexs hopped?
I know it's funny to think about those big reptiles bouncing around, especially after all the movies. But if one came hopping after me, I wouldn't be laughing for long.
Notafraidtoo
(402 posts)Thank you for that imagery, fun stuff!