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A timeline of the dinosaurs [infographic]

Dinosaurs – literally, the ‘terrible lizards‘ – were first recognized by science, and named by Sir Richard Owen (who preferred the translation ‘fearfully great’), in the 1840’s. In the intervening 170 years our knowledge of dinosaurs, including whether they all really died out 65 million years ago, has changed dramatically.

From drilling into the crater which was made by a giant meteorite that killed the dinosaurs, to reconstructing feathered dinosaurs who scientists now believe are directly linked to today’s birds (our very own living dinosaurs), scientists are constantly discovering things we didn’t know about these ‘terrible lizards’ that first started to evolve over 250 million years ago. We’re even realizing some things we thought we knew were wrong – and some things we thought had been disproved were ‘right again‘.

But in order to understand these new things we’re learning, we need to revisit the basics that we might have forgotten. Have you ever been reading an article about recent discoveries, and thought that you needed a refresher on your dinosaur knowledge? What were they, again? When were they alive and how did they evolve over time? What was happening to the earth around them?

Take a crash course on the history of the dinosaurs and find out the answers to all these questions, plus discover what types of dinosaurs were roaming in the three key periods (Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous), with our infographic below.

OR-dinosaur-timeline

Download the infographic as a PDF or JPG.

All facts in this blog post were correct at the time of publishing – we can’t predict what scientists will discover next, but we’re excited to find out.

Featured image credit: Tyrannosaurus Rex, by LoneWombatMedia. CC0 Public Domain via Pixabay.

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