Dinosaurs. From the First to the Last Day Of Life 4K - ReYOUniverse

Life often took bizarre forms throughout our planet's existence long before the dinosaurs their less popular but no less fascinating ancestors were already waging a fierce struggle for A Place in the Sun at that time there appeared some unusual body shapes that it's difficult to believe they existed this was the Paleozoic Era it ended with the most massive Extinction In the Earth's history it wiped out 95% of marine species and at least 70% of terrestrial animals from the face of the planet however a small number of animals managed to survive the Mesozoic Era is the period

when dinosaurs prevailed on the planet they were the most advanced survival machines perfectly adapted to the environment they ruled the planet for 160 million Years during this time dinosaurs developed unique hunting and defense tools and Ultra precise sense organs it seemed that they would forever dominate all living creatures but one day in an instant something stopped them this is the complete history of how the most successful creatures on Earth e evolve from their ancestors and the emergence of these reptiles to their last Days what was before the dinosaurs on earth how did dinosaurs occupy all

niches land air and water how over the course of millions of years did life develop following its own laws and create such fascinating creatures what was unusual about them why were were these reptiles so big why didn't they evolve into sensient beings who lived in the ocean and soared in the sky and finally what happened on the last day of Dinosaurs a history of dinosaurs from the first to the last day of life the supercontinent Pangia has changed the climate flora and fauna the peran period or simply the perm began 300 million years ago on

the planet it ended the Paleozoic Era and lasted 47 million years until the Mesozoic during that time two continents laurasia and Gand Wanda formed a supercontinent Pangia with the ponthus mega ocean washing it Shores as you can imagine the merger of two continents significantly changed the climate Flora and Fauna of the planet during the previous Carboniferous period the Earth was warm and humid there were many lakes rivers and swamps forests of giant Spore plants like Ferns and Club mosses covered the land trees had 1.5 M 4.92 ft diameter trunks and grew 10 m 32.8 1

ft tall Mega mushrooms prototaxites could be seen through the haze of swamp Vapors those green blue brown Giants sometimes grew higher than a two-story building cartilaginous fish lived in the Seas they looked like real chimeras the distant ancestor of the shark the helicoprion was perhaps perhaps the scariest because of a dental spiral with two or three turns its body reached 10 to 12 M 39 ft and the diameter of the dental spiral reached 90 CM 2.95 ft its terrifying lower jaw was Equipped with many sharp teeth despite all this helicoprion teeth failed to break hard

shells and ate only soft food like squid Krill and shrimp during that period land animals were not numerous however some of them were big even insects were big and looked like monsters from horror movies imagine huge dragonflies meites gracilipes flying over a lake their wingspan reached more than 30 cm one foot the predecessors of Our cute dragonflies were ugly and scary they had pred Jaws bulging eyes and spiked legs a distant relative of modern centipedes a terrible arthop plui lived in swamps 3M insects ate tons of vegetation per year they also like to eat small

amphibians they tore them apart with strong jaws with sharp teeth most likely all those giant creatures appeared due to an excess of oxygen in the atmosphere The level of oxygen at that time was 35% it is almost 14% higher than we have now there is a hypothesis that the size of insects depends on the high level of oxygen the insect respiratory system consists of tracheas those are tubes that Supply oxygen to various organs because of those tubes insects can't grow bigger now remember the bigger the insect the longer its wind pipes at the current oxygen

level in the Atmosphere no oxygen will reach the organs during the inhale only if the concentration of o2 were higher long trachea would deliver oxygen to the body organs that is why insects reached incredible sizes during the Carboniferous period if in the future for some reason the oxygen level goes up let's say up to 40% the insects again would turn into huge monsters the scientist calculated that Dragonflies would reach the size of a small aircraft The Beetles the size of a small tank the oxygen level also affects the size of animals but to a lesser

degree science does not offer an exact explanation why one of the hypotheses says that higher oxygen levels allow big animals to get more oxygen to the muscles in addition higher O2 is good for the devel velopment and rapid growth of embryos and Eggs with the onset of the perian period the amount of oxygen in the air decreased that's why large insects and other species lost the size-based advantage and got smaller this evolutionary change did not happen overnight but took millions of years the formation of the supercontinent Pangia significantly changed the climate the climate during the

Carboniferous period was Prett pretty much the same all over the planet Now it got colder and had several zones the southern part of Pangia including Modern India Australia and South America was under ice snow cap covered the pole also there were hot rainless deserts inside Pangia there have never been more deserts on Earth than in those days the coast lines had moderate temperatures and humidity because of the ocean in general the perm climate was more like ours than Carboniferous or Mesozoic climate changes destroyed old flora and fauna without swamps and marshes Ferns and horsetails could

not grow and proliferate as the swamps became smaller the diversity of Spore plants shrank and gimos sperms began to dominate the planet those were all kinds of ginkos coniferous trees and palm like Cades with thick Trunks and leafy crowns animals also had to adapt to the new climate and adjust to Aid conditions They had to reinvent themselves to survive on a new supercontinent amphibians were at a disadvantage because their moist porous skin could not stand dry air they could survive only in lakes and marshes no wonder many species of amphibians became extinct on the contrary

reptiles rapidly spread across the globe because they adapted much better than others to the new environment During the perian period Reptiles constituted 53% of all tetr pods compared to 133% in the previous era at first reptiles had small size resembling modern lizards they fed mainly on arthropods and worms with time larger species appeared to prey on smaller ones most of the Predators had powerful jaws with strong teeth good for hunting nothing could prevent the reptilians from completely Conquering the planet however a real catastrophe Broke on Earth what happened let us picture the last days of

the perian period before the disaster a 4 M 200 kilo dimetrodon lived in a food Rich ocean the dimetrodon was one of the most successful predators of the peran it lived during the early peran around 295 to 272 million years ago its sharp teeth consisted of incizors and serrated fangs they were perfect for eating Flesh reptile likee in appearance and Physiology dimetrodon is nevertheless more closely related to mammals than to Modern reptiles though it is not a direct ancestor of mammals consisting of thick skins stretched over vertebral growths the back sail was a huge Advantage

the dimetrodon used it for mating games camouflage and swimming the saale helped to regulate the body temperature it also gave a head start in Hunting without the sail the body of a reptilian would warm up from 26 to 32° C in 205 minutes with the sail it took only 80 minutes thus the dimetrodon could hunt early in the morning before others woke up and move the sail also helped if the enemy like trat pids got in the way tat pids were predatory amphibians about 80 cm 2.62 ft long while adapted to life on land they

used sharp long upper fangs to attack however the traumatic pids were Very slow moreover they could not hunt in early morning because they needed time to warm up their cold body that is why they were easy prey for the larger and more agile dimetrodons During the perian period everybody was searching for food a 3M gorgonopsia was a predecessor of mammals perhaps it was partially covered with fur gorgonopsia also had SA Sab likee Fangs and a pineal third eye on the top of the head it was like a periscope a reptile used for hunting at dawn

it was the best time for hunting the gorgonopsia also had a well-developed brain and cerebellum it had good movement coordination it also had long straight hind quarters the gorgonopsia was not scared to hunt larger prey put all the details together and you'll get the picture of the most dangerous predator Of the peran period the gorgonopsia hunted even for a 4 meter herbivorous parasaurs peacefully eating the tree bark with sharp 15 cm dagger fangs the gorgonopsia could bite through the pineal bone armor of a clumsy animal its hunting strategy consisted of a series of attacks and

Retreats first a jumped on the prey then bit flesh off and retreated it attacked again and again until an agonized prey was Dead codons were another distant ancestor of mammals resembling otter in appearance they were small up to 60 cm 1.97 ft long they were warm blooded and furry it meant that they did not depend on temperature fluctuations codons could hunt at night when bigger Predators were resting hunting together they could aim at bigger animals and rarely left without prey their success depended on sharp teeth sharp fangs easily tore prey to Pieces iners captured and

bit off the flesh flat MERS with many cutting edges chew the prey the theodon who lived in the depths of Pangia had to move in search for a better place the rep looked like a modern crocodile with long legs together with dinosaurs and birds it was the ancestor of the crocodile some kinds of theodon could move on two limbs very very fast imagine that the theodon traveled For many miles until they found a green Oasis there they met herbivorous ethur among the trees those slow and clumsy reptiles were also the forerunners of dinosaurs they had

shelled and spiked backs to protect them from the Predators like the theodon however there were also amphibious yums those were easy prey for lunch 252 million years ago a catastrophe boiled inside the earth Scientists learned about it when they studied the geological layers of the planet and found Ash layers it supported the hypothesis that the catastrophe was caused by active tectonic shifts inside the planet after the merger of the continents the lorian gwanda lithospheric plates continued to move and as a result the southern plate dived under the northern one and formed huge holes on the

surface in which is now India and Siberia thus hot gases and magma splashed out from the inside of the planet to the surface hot floating lava eliminated everything standing in its way when magma reached the surface its temperature was 1,000 to 1, 1200° C it is four to five times hotter than a baking oven what would happen to the codon caught in the middle of the magma river right they were burnt to ashes in [Music] seconds eruption set the planet on fire that spread so fast that no creature could Escape magma eruptions and earthquakes caused

tsunamis tall waves would have hit and drowned dimetrodons and other many animals that lived in the Oasis imagine that the theodon and the ecosur were lucky and magma and fires did not touch the Oasis imagine there were only Quakes and Some dust storms even in that case the Clock Was ticking and they were doomed magma released a huge amount out of methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere the planet's temperature went up by at least 2 to 3° C and melted Frozen methane in the ocean releasing it into the atmosphere a greenhouse gas methane raised

temperatures by another 5° C all water on the planet evaporated and land dried up the same happened in the Oasis where the dinosaur ancestors lived The Greenery dried up and most animals died again surviving reptiles had to look for another place they kept moving but there was only a Barren desert poisonous acid rains fell from heavy clouds it was difficult to breathe because of particles of lava gases and Ash in the atmosphere there was no chance of surviving in such a hell it is a short description of the biggest Extinction in The history of the

earth it is called perian Triassic Extinction or colloquially as the great dying it wiped out 90 to 95% of water species and at least 70% of land species fortunately some creatures survived including codons because they hid in the Burrows the dinosaur ancestors theodon and ecosur survived too soon they would enter a new Mesozoic Era and bring the famous dinosaurs to domination while Codons the predecessors of mammals would have to adjust and wait for their turn the planet took about 30 million years to recover from the great dying animals had to change and adjust to new

conditions and it took a long time as you know evolutionary changes take millions of years it took nature over 30 million years to recover from the largest biospheric catastrophe on the planet called the Great peran Triassic Extinction when life began to develop again completely different animals started to Prevail who ruled the planet for the next 160 million years they lend their name to an entire era in the development of our planet they started their triumphant Journey to the Pinnacle of evolution as small creatures with bird tracks thanks to their great adaptability they managed to Edge

out all big [Music] predators these reptiles appeared in the Mesozoic Era otherwise known as the dinosaur era their first remains were found in the Triassic period that started almost 252 million years ago and lasted 51 million years in the Triassic period the Earth was quite different from what it is today the land was represented by a single supercontinent of Pangia surrounded by the Waters of the panthis mega Ocean the face of Pangia was constantly changing Inland water bodies appeared and disappeared and mountains formed it was during this period that the Ural range was formed at

the start of the Mesozoic Era the planet became warmer the temperature probably Rose due to the large amount of carbon dioxide that formed as a result of numerous volcanic eruptions caused by tectonic plate movement calculations proved that 100,000 gigatons of CO2 were emitted into the atmosphere in that period it's a well-known fact that this gas creates a greenhouse effect the solar rays enter the Earth's atmosphere and reach the surface as short frequency waves the planet heats up and begins to emit longer wavelengths of heat radiation some of them must go into space but greenhouse gases

don't let waves of this wavelength slip away especially CO2 as a result this makes the planet's temperature rise during the Triassic period the snow caps at the poles melted due to global warming the climate has become less zonal making it more homogeneous throughout the whole Pangia the rainy season lasted only 3 months a year 9 months of drought followed then the water bodies became shallow and evaporated drying up almost all vegetation the supercontinent was Covered mostly by Barren deserts it was very difficult for life to recover after the mass extinction under such conditions life continued

to evolve mainly on the banks of water bodies and near by the plants in these green oases have changed a lot droughts have completely destroyed tree likee Club Moss and many Spore Fern species the coniferous trees of the Peran period also disappeared and were quickly replaced by new plant species that were more adapted to dry habitats thuga and arukara emerged and have survived to this day some Conifer of that time were herbs without hardwood stems this allowed the plants to recover faster with the onset of the rainy season also Cades gko and other gimos sperms

similar to Modern palm trees began to spread throughout the supercontinent however seed ferns Continued to dominate many insects flew and crawled among these plants crickets beetles exotic cockroaches with large furry p pause preferred to suck plant sap or feed on pollen but predatory insect larvae often devoured their own kind for example gluttonous baby snout beetles waited for prey and Cade cones dragon flies were flying over water bodies catching insects and 40 cm mesot tanid with Serrated sickle-shaped Paws have gone as far as hunting small amphibians sharks and bony fish were fighting for prey in the

open sea over time they developed Jaws that could easily Crush crab shells and sea shells but Ray Fin fish wasn't lagging behind like the modern Pike these Predators were over 1 M long the newly emerged aquatic reptiles called nothosaurs were the largest Hunters of the Triassic Seas similar to giant dinosaurs nothosaurs fished with their sharp teeth they swam very fast and could catch up with any prey the number of amphibians that once dominated other animals on land continued to decline even though some species were still quite numerous labyrinthodont lived in swamps lakes and rivers across

all continents they resembled both frogs and crocodiles and had horizontal hips and Shoulders their length ranged from half a a meter 1.64 ft to 5 m 16.4 ft Labyrinth the Dons were carnivores who prayed on their relatives and small fish using Ambush tactics these gray green animals Blended perfectly with the environment waiting for hours with their mouths wide open their jaws would slam shut whenever someone came close enough for them to reach and crushed the prey with the formidable teeth Labyrinthodont defended themselves from enemies with the firm shelled bone plates covering their entire bodies as

in the perian period numerous reptiles dominated the planet however they changed a lot during the Triassic period the most advanced forms of reptiles weren't affected by the great Extinction the distant ancestors of mammals called codons were among those animals these small creatures weren't bigger than a weasel or more rarely a Large dog they literally had to survive under the feet of large Predators but codons knew how to dig deep Burrows and often lived in pears caring for their young it is hypothesized that some of them had already fed milk to their offspring some of these

animals might have been marsupial and carried their young on them moreover furry warm-blooded codons didn't need to warm up in the morning they could easily hunt At night when large Predators were asleep having adapted to the new conditions these reptiles spread across the whole planet and the super Predators were mostly represented by crocodiles or rather their 8m crocodil morph ancestors these reptiles huge teeth ferocity and strength terrifi the animal of the Triassic world one particular species of crocodil morphs was given a no less terrifying name the Carolina Butcher or carnex carolon nenus visually this 3M

Predator resembled a large crocodile however it preferred to live on land rather than in water and could quickly run on its hind legs the ancestors of modern crocodiles had extremely sharp teeth that could bite through thick reptilian shells finally the first dinosaurs emerged in the middle of the Triassic period paleontologists find their bones All over the world predominantly in modern Argentina at first these reptiles weren't Giants but they grew larger over time but what helped dinosaurs to survive in the world of predators of the Triassic and evolve so quickly first of all many of the

them were bipedal interestingly the reptiles stepped on their toes just like birds and not on their heels like us this is why the traces of these small animals Resemble Heron tracks dinosaur's legs were under their abdomen as opposed to on either side of the body like in crocodiles for example because of this these reptiles could quickly catch up with the prey or run away from the predator in addition dinosaurs were inertial homeotherms meaning that their body warmed up a lot during the day but it didn't cool down during the night thanks to their fast Metabolism

and some species have really become warm-blooded this feature allowed them to remain active Around the Clock thus the reptiles got a head start in obtaining food it has also been found that dinosaurs had sedentary breathing this process occurred due to air sacks which were special lung growths dinosaurs received oxygen from the atmosphere during inhalation and From oxygen bags during exhalation such a respiratory system turned out to be indispensable in the oxygen poor Triassic period initially the concentration of o2 in the atmosphere was 10 to 15% at the end of the Triassic the figure jumped to

about 19% but this still wasn't enough to put this into perspective oxygen makes up just over 21% of the current atmosphere and in the Carboniferous Period it Rose to 35% it's also important that dinosaur skin is scaly and water repellent it protected animals from both moisture loss and predators finally dinosaur eggs were thick shelled due to this the Cub survival rate was rather High compared to other reptiles however the first reptiles still had an insanely difficult time in the harsh world of the Triassic they were constantly fighting to the death for their place in the

sun perhaps this is how dinosaurs survived alongside other Triassic inhabitants in what is now South Carolina 200 million years ago the rainy season could last 9 months and small lakes turned into vast water B naturally water always attracts a lot of animals that can drink and Hunt nearby in ancient times huge 5 meter crocodil morphs also love to Splash in The ponds looking for a suitable lunch they were probably well fed as there was plenty of fish and small reptiles to snack on during the rainy season carnivorous dinosaurs such as the huge gorosaurus could also

come to the drinking place the largest of them in the Triassic were over 5 m 16.4 ft long and weighed 150 kg these reptiles probably hunted numerous small animals near water Bodies herds of herbivorous dinosaurs could graze in forests covered with Lush Greenery near rivers and lakes in millions of years their descendants sorop pods will grow 10 m necks and huge bodies wing dozens of tons so far the size of these animals for example the Rio Sidi were much more modest but some of them in the Triassic were already 10 m 33 ft long such

reptiles still had elongated legs and not column-shaped as Later but they were able to rise in their hind limbs in order to reach the young leaves on the Treetops and they already had a steady barrel-shaped body body small reptiles could also live among the forest trees many of them were bipedal during the Triassic period for instance eor raptoran they were usually no longer than 1 meter and weighed 10 kg these Nimble Predators successfully Hunted small reptiles and amphibians grabbing insects on the Fly they also looked for and crushed the eggs of other dinosaurs with their

sharp teeth in addition small Predators often hunted in packs so they could well have attacked the baby of the huge dinosaurs interestingly many of them were omnivores and didn't mind eating some plants for dessert meanwhile codons the ancestors Of future mammals probably stayed in Burrows during the day guarding their offspring some of their species such as cognius were already quite large these animals were the size of a large dog had wide jaws and sharp teeth they could clearly stand up for themselves however they probably preferred to go hunting only after dark to avoid huge Predators

cognates were warm-blooded so the night cold wasn't much of a problem in a nutshell all the animals Were well fed and satisfied during the rainy season but water bodies would become shallow after the rainy season leaving only a few fish alive there would be fewer amphibians near Shores too voracious crocodil morphs would find it difficult to feed themselves under such conditions however Predators could always count on some careless young Reptile to stray away from a flock of small dinosaurs at the drinking place a strong big mouth crocodil morph armed with sharp teeth had every chance

of getting it for for dinner large dinosaurs may also have considered smaller dinosaurs as prey it can be assumed that the small dinosaurs like the eor Raptors didn't starve themselves after all a lot of amphibians and insects could be found near the water Bodies herds of huge herbivorous dinosaurs must have had a particularly difficult time treel likee plants would dry up completely during the rainless season the lack of resources may have forced giants like rasur to migrate in search of remaining forests moreover they had a great chance to successfully make long transitions spikes and plates

on animal skin protected their body from moisture loss perhaps when the drought became Completely unbearable large Predators began to hunt each other if a crocodil morph and a large predatory dinosaur had a fight the latter would surely wind according to paleontologists ancient reptiles were more mobile than crocodil morphs in addition they often ate carry and in the forests smaller Predators would probably get some leftovers after the bloody Feast of those at the top of the food chain with the onset of the rainy season The animals that survived the drought predominantly dinosaurs returned to normal life

near lakes and rivers they went about their business foraging and laying eggs this is how the dinosaurs became stronger on the planet but it was most likely another Global catastrophe that made them Thrive the Triassic Jurassic Extinction occurred 169 million years ago scientists don't have a single Hypothesis on what caused it perhaps volcanoes contributed to dinosaurs thriving the breakup of the Pangia supercontinent led to intense volcanic eruptions numerous eruptions have caused huge amounts of carbon dioxide to be dumped into the atmosphere it created a greenhouse effect and a dramatic climate change and such changes are

usually followed by ecosystem [Music] Collapse however the cause of Extinction may not have been connected to a global catastrophe some scientists believe it could be caused by cool in on the planet in the late Triassic polar and High Mountain ice caps appeared that cooled the Earth even more this led to the Ice Age and significant freezing of the ocean such a sharp change in climate caused another Global Extinction it's also believed that a Huge asteroid collided with our planet leading to a disaster however the crater from the impact hasn't been found however over millions of

years it could have been wiped out by the ocean in any case about 50% of land animals died at the end of the Triassic many ecological niches became free after that dinosaurs were able to take them further reinforcing their positions in The evolutionary landscape of the Earth the Jurassic period or the Jura is probably the most interesting era after watching the famous movie the Jurassic Park an average person might think that the Earth was populated only by dinosaurs like T-Rex in fact it wasn't quite like that even though the Jurassic period is also known as

the age of reptiles let's start with the statement that the Jurassic period the second in the Mesozoic Era is long and Complex it began 2011 million years ago and lasted about 56 million years it got its name because the fossils were first discovered and explored in the Jura mountains in Switzerland and France hence the name of the period this era is divided into three stages the first which lasted from 20.3 to 174.000 years ago is called the lower Jurassic at that time life was recovering from The Triassic Jurassic Extinction that caused about half of all

animal species on the planet to disappear however the hot and humid climate of the Jura helped life to quickly bounce back warm oceans and seas abounded with amoia bellamia fish and reptiles on land reptiles including dinosaurs quickly filled the ecological niches freed by the previous Extinction in the process of evolution some reptiles got wings and flew into the sky The beginning of the Jurassic period launched the high time for reptiles hundreds of dinosaur species appeared on the planet they settled on all continents including Antarctica some reached incredible sizes and proportions some of course developed formidable

shapes sometimes bizarre and scary what are the mysteries of the prehistoric reptile that lived on earth 200 million years ago at that time the continents of the Earth were under the process of formation the single supercontinent of Pangia begun to split into separate Continental blocks shallow Seas filled the gaps the continents began to take modern shape bays deepened and separated Africa and Australia the gulf between Africa and America became deeper too in Eurasia the German Anglo Paris and Western Siberian depressions were formed the Arctic sea flooded the Northern coast of laurasia in North America the

Rocky Mountains and the Andes were under formation many volcanic eruptions accompanied splitting of tectonic plates and reshaping of continents volcanic eruptions released huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and intensified the greenhouse effect the climate of the Jurassic period was generally warmer than the current one by about 5 to 10° C And the carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere was four times higher the rains were more frequent and heavy compared to the triacid most of the Earth had humid tropical and subtropical climate huge areas were covered with Lush vegetation primarily jungles and forests they

consisted mainly of seed Ferns and non-flowering Woody plants let us remind you that plants unlike animals were lucky there is no Clear evidence of the Flora Extinction at the turn of the Triassic and Jura thanks to the Heat and high humidity the trees in the forest grew tall and big Cades are widespread in the tropics and subtropics the era of the the Heyday began during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods the Cades reached the peak of diversity at the beginning of the Jura they looked very much like palm trees its size puzzled even the famous botanist

Carl lenus and caused him to Make mistake in his classification system the scientist placed Cades in the Palm section tall genko trees grew in areas with a temperate climate Geno crowns look like Oaks but the leaves are small and fan-shaped it is a Pity that only one kind of genko tree survived till today it is gko Boba the Cades and ginkos coexisted with Prehistoric Conifers those trees look like modern Hues Pines and cypresses during the late Triassic and early Jura conifers changed rapidly and reached great diversity during the early Jurassic the mid latitude Flor of

East Asia was dominated by the extinct Conifer podozamites which do not appear to be closely related to any existing Conifer family its needles were broad more like leaves and the tree itself was Deciduous modern conifers are mostly Evergreen with deciduous being the exception the Lush vegetation sustain the unprecedented flourishing of life with insects doing especially great they were lucky apparently there was no Extinction of insects at the turn of the Triassic and Jura therefore the forests fields and banks of the early Jura Rivers were buzzing with all kinds of insects imagine predatory dragon flies flying

over the water in search of Prey herbivorous beetles swarming in the thickets of plants and arachnids like spiders and scorpions waiting for their prey at the turn of the Triassic and Jura the first butterflies appeared however by appearance they were a pale shadow of colorful beautiful butterflies we admire in our time at the same time some creatures fluttered through the Jurassic Forest that looked like modern butterflies but in fact they were Not what is it and how can it be explained well the explanation is an amazing phenomenon convergent evolution the creatures that look like butterflies

in the early Jurassic fluttered like butterflies and even pollinated plants like butterflies were actually calaged they belong to a different family of insects and their closest modern relatives are lace Wings in the Jurassic calati of course could not pollinate flowers since the Flowers almost did not exist in nature they just appeared were small and technically unsuited for insects however let us remind you that coniferous seed plants had cones with long tubes of nectar and pollen they attracted the pseudo butterflies of the Jurassic period thus calmati and butterflies are one of the many examples of convergent

evolution in evolutionary biology convergent evolution is defined as the Process whereby distantly related organisms independently evolve similar traits to adapt to similar Necessities that is why different unrelated animals can have a striking resemblance but live in different areas and on continents for example tenra are a striking example of convergent evolution from a single colonizing ancestor tenra have evolved into incredible diverse species which Resemble moles shrews hedgehogs and even otter have a look and find 10 differences it's not an easy task because tenr and hedgehogs are similar like siblings in fact they belong to very distant

branches of the genetic tree one can say that tenr has more biologically in common with an elephant than with a hedgehog if you dig deeper it turns out that indeed they have only an external resemblance talking about our Jurassic Pseudo butterflies we can say that they were strikingly similar to to real lepidoptera broad Wings scales feeding camouflage everything is like that of lepidoptera but these are completely different species numerous examples of convergent evolution enable us to conclude that Evolution takes the shortest optimal path and it means that on some fantastic exoplanet with earthlike conditions perhaps

we would have met strange but Rather recognizable life forms amphibians at that time were yielding to reptiles many species died out only salamanders early frogs and cilian legless wormlike amphibians still survived among the large species there were still a few brachiopods which often grew up to 3 m in length the record holder was found in loso in Africa according to its fossilized remains scientist estimated its size at about 7 m throughout history Only prianos sucus were large amphibians but they lived and went extinct in the perian period brachiopods had flat bodies and spatulate heads the

mouth had razor sharp teeth with which Predators could instantly tear apart the victim despite proliferation later their numbers declined but the number of reptiles grew grew rapidly before the dinosaurs separated into a single group the Overall reptile diversity grew in number and species at an impressive Pace they gradually gained dominance in water on land and in the air real monsters lived in the warm tropical Seas of the Jura often frightening but no less amazing and beautiful in their own way they barely squeezed through the bottleneck of the Triassic Jurassic Extinction and began to gradually grow

stronger at the beginning of the Jura one of the most Notable is iosaur there are many different types of them on average they were quite large 2 to 4 M but due to the favorable environment as Evolution proceeded individual species reached enormous sizes the largest known to science shaoa grew up to 15 M the champion among shunosaurus is shastasaurus boasting up to 21 M length some species of iosaur looked rather strange the body is exactly like that of A shark but the head of a gerial crocodile with a long narrow snout it could be called

a bad joke of nature like a modern platypus interesting iosaur had very large eyes protected by a ring of bone according to paleontologists it might help in night hunting it was also great for diving because large eyes helped to see at least something with eyes of 25 cm in diameter temnodontosaurus could still see at a Depth of up to, 1600 M 600 M deep in the water human eyes are unable to see except complete darkness it is known that at a depth of 800 to 950 M the light intensity is about 1% of noon illumination

on the surface it is interesting to know that iosaur are vious and warm-blooded it may seem counterintuitive since we're used to the fact that reptiles crocodiles snakes lay eggs to lay eggs reptiles need land even Sea turtles come ashore to lay their eggs as for iosaur they breathe air and their native element was [Music] water when reptiles got Wings back in the Triassic period terrasaurus appeared at the beginning of the Jura they were still recovering from the mass extinction of species and the RAM for hodai family was more or less noticeable they ate mainly fish

the reptiles reached great Diversity on land prehistoric turtles in general were similar to modern ones the land was dominated of course by dinosaurs paleontologists identified over 900 different generic and over 1,000 species of non-avian dinosaurs alone in the early Jura they quickly occupied the free niches after Extinction it is a stereotype that all dinosaurs were huge in fact they had different sizes some did not exceed the size of chickens and some grew into huge Monsters most dinosaurs were carnivorous and hunted for prey some dinosaurs were hiberus they slowly stomp through the forest shaking the ground

and nibbling at all the vegetation at the beginning of the Jurassic about 82.7 to 74.1 million years ago interesting dinosaurs lived on the territory of modern Zimbabwe vulcanodon discovered in 1969 on a small island in the Kuba Reservoir in Zimbabwe It was regarded as the earliest known sorod for decades es and it is still one of the most primitive sorop pods that has been discovered as a quadrupedal ground dwelling herbivore vulcanodon already showed the typical sorod body plan with columnlike legs and a long neck and tail it is one of the very first dinosaurs found

on Zimbabwean soil the Latin name [Music] Between two solidified lava flows this was enough to get a specific name based on the nature of the Rock in which the fossils of [Music] [Music] up to 2.5 M it weighed up to 2.5 tons some researchers are more generous with estimates and say it was up to 11 m in length and up to 3.5 tons in weight this herbivorous dinosaur moved on four legs but it could rise on two legs for Example to eat branches [Music] due to the sparse vegetation the Volcan were not fussy about the

menu and like any other natural vegetarian in the entire history of evolution volcanodiscovery of the remains of vulcanodon and it all started with a curious riddle that became a puzzle South AFA African paleontologist Michael rot discovered several teeth Near the pelvic vulcanodon remains however the head and neck were not found the shape of the teeth was rather strange more characteristic of predators according to the scientists the dying [Music] volcanodiscovery a similar pose is sometimes found among dinosaur fossils because of such unusual teeth and a herbivorous dinosaur the researcher mentioned it in the name of the

Genus if everything is confirmed [Music] [Music] entirely successfully so it even broke a couple of teeth on it but this attack was still fatal to the victim this is how [Music] space and time but in order to see the incredible Dilophosaurus we need to go back in time to another continent laasia where at that time the outlines of the Future continent of North America were already formed Dilophosaurus lived in what is now Arizona in the United States between 199.000 and 19.8 million years ago it was an effective Predator fast and Incredibly agile it hunted for

herbivorous Dinosaurs the Latin name Dilophosaurus comes from the Greek words for two crested lizard it was based on an unusual bone formation on the skull with Two flat semicircular ridges it was a decorative organ playing a role in mating games the closest modern example is the Combs of basilisks and iguanas a red comb of a rooster belongs to the phenomenon of the same nature the body length of Dilophosaurus reached 7 m height up to 2 m it weighed up to 400 kg at the beginning of the Jurassic period these are very impressive dimensions for a

Predator Dilophosaurus was the largest Predator at the time in this sense scientists sometimes refer to it as an early jurian T-Rex as an adult it was a threat to almost any local animal however the sasur us or scelidosaurus who lived at the same time in the territory of Arizona could be hunted by Dilophosaurus only in pairs or even in groups the former two were herbivorous But they could fight back in any case this early Jurassic theropod occupied the top of the food pyramid judging by the narrow jaws and long teeth it preferred to hunt relatively

small animals taking advantage of its size and strength high speed and flexibility allowed to catch even very tiny and fast dinosaurs such as scutellosaurus after analyzing the Jaws scientists concluded that in the absence of large Prey a significant share of its diet could be fish and other water inhabitants sometimes it would eat decaying flesh of dead animals celop fisis was a small slenderly built ground dwelling biped carnivore that could grow up to 3 m 9.8 ft long it was one of the earliest known dinosaur jera the name celop fisis comes from two Greek words that

mean Hollow form the reason for this is simple thanks to the Hollow bones of the limbs celop fisis had an extremely light skeleton celop fisis lived in late Triassic and early juracic about 28.5 to 10.8 million years ago according to other estimates celop ficis proliferated during a relatively short period from 228 to 200 million years ago these reptiles were common in North America especially in the New Mexico region as well as in South Africa South Africa and Zimbabwe this slender squat Predator looks small compared to Dilophosaurus the body length of the celop ficis reached 3

m height up to 1 M and weight up to 30 kg the teeth of the celop fisis are typical of carnivorous dinosaurs blad likee curved backwards sharp with small serrations on both the anterior and posterior edges although it was carnivorous they followed a different Hunting strategy than large dinosaurs of the Jurassic period representatives of the genus haunted large prey and flocks the North American valleys in the late Triassic and early Jurassic were mostly deserts however there were green Oasis on the Uplands mountains Hills on these plateaus or in the mountain forests flocks of predatory celop

fisis track down their prey presumably they Ed special shouts alerts in their language it is possible that the celop Fices develop some primitive tactics and could hunt down a large herbivorous dinosaur they surrounded the prey and attacked together most likely its diet consisted of smaller animals reptiles and lizards their fossils were often found along with the skeletons of celop fisis by the way here's a curious fact for a long time until the early 2000s celop fices were considered cannibals it was indicated by the remain Found at the Ghost Ranch in New Mexico there Cubs of

its own species were found in the stomach of the prehistoric adult celop ficis however later it turned out that the fine was misidentified later the Cubs were classified as Hesperus the usual prey for the celop fisis in general it is one of the most studied Triassic Jurassic theropods all thanks to the many remains found including several Skeletons the Ghost Ranch has a spooky reputation because there is a cemetery of celop fisis skeletons what happened there is not entirely clear while celop fisis is among the most notable fossils found at Ghost Ranch the site is Rich

with examples of many different species of dinosaurs and crocodilians an even smaller but remarkable dinosaur in the early Jura the name suggests the African country of Loso indeed the first remains of this microor were discovered in the high African country of loso these animals lived in the period of 199.000 to 19.8 million years ago the body length of the lotosaurus reached 2 m and this is the maximum estimates of height vary greatly from 40 cm to 1 M and even more weight estimates are also in a wide range from 3 to 10 kg since we're

not talking about a Species but about a whole genus such an error is normal lotosaurus moved on two long thin legs which allowed it to developed impressive speed the five-fingered forelimbs of lesothosaurus were small but welldeveloped from the outside they may seem like a miniature likeness of human hands by analogy with our little finger the fifth finger was poorly developed with these very hands he touched and held the plants he was Eating romboid teeth lined up along the jaws of the lesothosaurus in front of the upper jaw were 12 teeth similar to arroe Heads This

Light structure of the teeth is not very suitable for grinding hard food but it is quite suitable for cutting soft stems or leaves the body of the lorus was elongated in light somewhat reminiscent of archosaurs which barely stood on two [Music] Legs a thin long tail was important for balancing when moving quickly in general because of the short skull and elongated body the lesothosaurus was somewhat reminiscent of a bipedal lizard that decided to get up on two legs and run this in fact can be done by some Modern reptiles lotosaurus was a very fast and

Nimble animal at the slightest sign of danger turned on its legs did he have enemies of course at least the same celop fices when we Mention small living creatures as typical prey of celop fisis lotosaurus fits into this category the long-legged celop ficis could easily keep up with the lotosaurus the latter did not have any means of protection no serious claws no armor no fangs like larine what is larine finally a very miniature dinosaur which is difficult to call a dinosaur but still very interesting at least Because it puzzled paleontologist with a lot of mysteries

its very name symbolizes larinus means wolf face fangs were found on the remains of the jaw although the rest of the teeth testified to her biver larinus lived in the early Jurassic Period about 199.99 6.5 million years ago in the territory of the modern Republic of South Africa the body length of larine reached 1.2 M height up to 50 cm he weighed up to 10 kg the larine moved on two limbs which is also characteristic of its relative heter odont torus Lor rinus had strong light legs and a long tail for improved balance well developed

upper limbs served as convenient manipulators when eating plant Foods in front of the teardrop shaped head behind the hard beak-like end there were large sharp fangs because of this He was first mistaken for a descendant of the animal tooth lizard of the codon suborder judging by the jaw the diet of this Gourmet dinosaur included everything in a row both succulent stocks of ferns and horsetails and more solid food the roots and bark of trees when the Predators attack the Lor rinus they risk being bitten hard but of course only camouflage in quick feet could save

Lor rinus from Hungry Predators finally we want to remind you That not all dinosaurs were giants many were something in between a chicken and a lizard for example Allosaurus plus it took 100 million years before the appearance of real giants we already know about large predatory monster Dilophosaurus to see other amazing large herbivores we'll go to the Southeastern part of the laurasia continent the lands of modern China here on the territory of the Current province of yunan In the period 2.3 to 168.3 3 million years ago monsters roamed named after the place where the remains

were found [Music] yanos the body length of yanasa surus reached 13 M height up to 4.3 M it weighed up to 3 tons this is incomparably small compared to the Giants of the later periods with their tens of tons of weight but for the early Jura it is already something Yanos saurus moved mainly on four legs but spent a significant part of the time on two so he could reach the chosen branches on the trees or threateningly expose his for liims when a predator approached these peculiar hands of his were quite large and like the

legs were equipped with impressive claws at the end of the long neck of yanasa surus was a small elongated head particularly noteworthy are the spoon-shaped teeth of which there were More than 60 in the Jaws when the Jaws were compressed they were located close to each other therefore they were self-sharpening this feature is not found in proro pods like yanasa surus but appears in later sorop pods like brochos surus thus animals that lived at different times and are not close relatives have a common feature we again see an example of convergent evolution if scientists found

only the Teeth of yanasa surus then by its shape they could mistakenly classify it as a sorod herbivorous yanos Surs move from one natural pasture to another not being particularly picky in their food the unique teeth made it possible not only to effectively pluck the foliage of tall plants but also to eat undersized ferns with horsetails theoretically yanos could live in herds for better defense from predator ERS we see something similar now in the savanas of Africa when lions hunting herds of Buffalo often have to run away when herbivores fight back at the end of

the first stage of the Jurassic period a cooling Trend set in on the planet ice started to cover some areas the icing was not strong enough to hit the mammals these animals were mostly covered with fur and lived in Burrows no wonder that cold temperatures hurt dinosaurs who like to Live in a warm climate as we can see from the example of the celop fices not all species survive colder weather of course much more amazing reptile species lived in the early Jura we know only about a small part from the crumbs of the remains that

have been preserved the mid Jurassic period is dated from 174.72 5 million years ago back then the supercontinent Pangia began to separate into Loria and Gondwana numerous earthquakes accompanied the Continental split this transformed the way the planet looked the simaran tectonic plate on the south coast completely blocked the te sea making it Inland and the plate movements in the western North America Coast have formed the Rocky Mountains the Atlantic Ocean emerged as a result of tectonic shifts which washed the super conent that hadn't yet split into two parts not only has the way the planet

Looked but its climate has also changed at the end of the first stage of the Jurassic period the Earth got colder some areas became covered with ice however scientists doubt that this temperature drop caused the formation of massive Polar Ice camps High summer temperatures most likely melted the snow and prevented it from accumulating in one place although individual small glaciers could have formed on the Mountaintops as for the temperature of the ocean researchers are almost unanimous during the middle Jurassic unlike the land the ocean warmed up by about 8° C higher than now due to

the rather warm and humid climate Lush veget ation covered most of the land in winter and summer in the southern belt Groves of palm-like puses and tree fern spread some of these Fern species have survived to this day near the poles coniferous trees Dominated the forest they were the predecessors of modern cypresses Cedars and U's the Polar climate with hot summers and cold sometimes snowy Winters was quite suitable for these plants in other parts of the planet non-flowering plants such as gko and psychoses prevailed in the mixed forests male cones of these trees bore pollen

that was carried by the wind over great Distances this allowed the plants to effectively pollinate the female cones and spread across the planet Forest free areas were filled with thickets of herbaceous Ferns and Club mosses the Lush vegetation and warm climate facilitated the the development of all living beings and this is exactly why middle Jurassic is considered one of the key periods in terrestrial life Evolution numerous flies and dragon Flies flew in the forests and on the banks of water bodies while Beatles look for something on the ground one could already hear the trills of

the arabus Crickets in the dense thickets in 2021 scientists from China the US and the UK a reproduced their sound based on well-preserved fossils from the jilang Shan formation in China the experiment was conducted using a resonant mechanism tuned to a frequency Of 6.4 [Music] khz the results showed that the males made pure tonal that is musical sounds besides the insects almost all other animal species successfully reproduced and favorable conditions of the Jurassic the only thing was that the number of amphibians continued to decline giant crocodil morphs no longer threatened all living things by that

Time 7 m sudos suchia labyrinthodont and ravas suchia had completely disappeared only relatively small crocodil likee species survived the ancestors of modern crocodiles were among these aquatic reptiles they lived on land and in the waters of the Jurassic period throughout all of Pangia Marine crocodiles have even mastered saltwater they have long narrow snouts and sharp teeth perfectly Designed for catching fish some varieties of sea crocodiles have grown Tail Fins and flippers instead of legs to swim faster the warm Seas of the Jurassic were teeming with arthropods all Crustaceans that now live in freshwater bodies used

to live in the marine environment in our time only crabs remained in the sea in addition new species of large sea Turtles appeared in saltwater in the middle Jurassic but plesiosaurs would probably steal the spotlight from all these creatures the huge monsters were up to 16 M long had wide flat bodies and short tails they had large flippers on their legs that were very handy in the Aquatic environment interestingly Plesiosaurus breathed air and gave birth to their young there are also facts that suggest they were Warm-blooded the most prominent feature of these animals was an

insanely long neck they had 76 vertebrae shaped like hockey pucks any modern giraffe would envy such a neck these animals weren't agile but they could easily find food using flippers they hovered in the water for hours swallowing Krill and other small sea creatures Swimming by other similar species were commonly called plaur they had short necks and large Heads some of them were up to 17 M long and were the size of modern orcas or even larger despite being huge plaur were fast and agile and could be considered Major Marine predators of those times the mid

Jurassic sky was also teeming with life one could often see terrasaurs flying in the sky they weren't afraid of cold spells they had a soft tissue Crest on their heads that was probably used for thermal Regulation in those days they were most commonly longtailed animals with a lot of sharp teeth their wide- wi webs were connected with the hind legs strong claws made terrasaurs efficient climbers that could have lived in trees terrasaurs were predators who ate insects or small vertebrates but as soon as these flying creatures landed on the ground for prey they found themselves

in the world of Dinosaurs reptiles Remain the most common animals on the planet they were constantly fighting for survival over the years each din dinosaur species developed its own defense and attack system Megalosaurus can be considered one of the largest and undoubtedly dangerous predator of those times they were up to 6 M long and weighed about 700 kg Megalosaurus walked on two powerful Hind legs holding the vertical body position using a long thick tail these dinosaurs had short but very strong forelimbs and were armed with long knife-like teeth when hunting they helped Predators instantly rip

apart the prey's flesh but another Predator Vian venator made quite a splash in the press in 1998 scientists found in mind in Germany a rib 50% larger than that of an Allosaurus but the Allosaurus was one of The most gigantic carnivorous dinosaurs of the Mesozoic era in the media the new reptile was unofficially dubbed the Minden monster and scientists began to calculate the giant size at first it was assumed to be 15 M then 12 M long however some researchers estimate that the animal was from 7 to 8 m long and weighed up to 1.2

tons but no one in the middle Jurassic could compete in size with sorop pods for example with Caurus at first s viewed them as aquatic creatures similar to very large crocodiles by then nonetheless they were classified as dinosaurs the Giants were about 16 M long and weighed about 11 tons but their tails and necks were shorter than those of most sorop pods they lived in flood Plains and in forests where they ate the chots of trees of the middle and lower stories however next to the other Mega Giants of the Jurassic the cetiosaurus seem the

smallest ones in the family their Bigger Brothers such as Brachiosaurus were 18 to 21 M long if it were possible to measure their weight the scales would show as much as 31 to 39 tons brachiosaurs had their own unique differences from other sorop pods they had disportionately long necks and small skulls also what's unusual usual about the dinosaur's legs is that the front Ones were much longer than theind ones thanks to this they could easily eat leaves from the Treetops keeping their balance with a short but powerful tail with this tail the lizards could have

well crippled the enemy although it's unlikely that many predators would dare to attack such Giants however not only the Giants were quite comfortable in the Jurassic Forest herbivorous d dinosaurs or niop pods were only about a meter long but They were probably very fast the stiff tail helped orthopods balance when running on their hind legs over time they began to graze on all fours more and more often as it was more convenient this way to eat low vegetation apparently their spine begin to bend because of this in the end these dinosaurs developed a hump on

their backs like modern bison ornithopods turned into the coolest guys of the Jurassic period they quickly ran On two legs and were very agile tree climers but most of the time they moved or grazed on all fours probably such a wide range of movements helped these dinosaurs survive among large Predators small codons are considered the predecessors of mammals they were hard to spot among other dinosaurs in the middle of the Jurassic they were still wides spread throughout the land one of the most numerous among the codons were the Trodd trodon ey who were as little

as 10 to 20 cm long but these babies were far from being harmless perhaps some of them were omnivores but most of them ate very small animals and insects most likely they found their prey using viisi this is the name of a special set of animal sensors the whisker sensory system due to this as well as some other anatomical features trodd are considered related to Mammals scientists believe that viisi have played an important role in the evolution of mammals from huge Tigers to the smallest shrews however in the middle of the Jurassic period mammals were

still quite small but they already had great species diversity and a large population new research shows that mammals evolve 10 times faster in the middle of the Jurassic than in the end scientists have not yet figured out Exactly what triggered this evolutionary explosion environmental changes are cited as one of the potential causes or perhaps such properties as live birth and ferocity in Predators help them to survive in addition they were mostly covered with fur that kept them warm at night so they could well have hunted at night not being afraid of predatory dinosaurs resting at

that time this allowed mammals to thrive in a variety of habitats and adapt to Changing ecologic systems all animals found their Niche on Jurassic Earth and perhaps 170 million years ago one of them lived in the forest near one of the many water bodies we can speculate what their life was like the Lush thickets of the forest in the lake were probably densely populated because they were favorable conditions for the life of various animals a huge Megalosaurus would come Out of the forest to the water body looking for dinner if an equally formidable vhan venator

went there looking for food they could engage in a cruel fight both dinosaurs are armed with sharp teeth and thick skin the banks of the river and the nearby Forest would probably be shaking from their fight if say the larger V and venator won it would probably enjoy the enemy's flesh and sustain himself for several Days well with so many predators lurking around mammals most likely didn't dare to leave their Burrows until night they were in no hurry they could as well hunt in the dark the animals loved to eat Conifer cones and Ginko seeds

sharp teeth allowed mammals to easily crack hard seeds and nuts and the fur kept them warm at night at dawn a very hungry 20 cm long trolod doned could climb out of the burrow after a short search it managed To find a tiny lizard for breakfast which wasn't warm yet and couldn't escape fast enough a young half meter crocodile would come out during the day to take a sunbath on the riverbank it had no idea was being closely watched Ted by a 2 m plaur hiding in Ambush when the crocodile decided to return to the

river it was snatched by the Predator right away meanwhile herds of herbivorous Dinosaurs could graze in the forest near the riverbank the long necked brochos surus seem to find a real treat of young juicy leaves and chots at the Treetops the lower branches were inaccessible to them because the Giants weren't able to bend their necks that far they needed to consume over a half a ton of vegetation a day and then the herd had to moved to Another Forest to find food sorop pods traveled great distances and spread across the planet unlike them ciosa surus

ate leaves in the middle and lower Forest Story due to their short necks they couldn't reach higher however this saves ciosa surus from rivalry with brochos surus so in the forest there was enough food for both after a couple of days the vi venator could again disturb the unstable Tranquility of the forest having digested its prey the giant was hungry again failing to find suitable prey it would probably have dared to attack the ciosa surus or even a larger brochi OA surus but it's unlikely to win this time the herds of grass grazing sorop pods

would most likely fight off the attack with powerful Tails but with so many animals living in the forest the ven venator was bound to End up with at least something for dinner sooner or later it would have caught smaller prey like some ornithopod who failed to escape so day after day life thrived in the forest near the lake in the fertile climate of the mid Jurassic but this period was now coming to an end in the past scientists believe that a mass extinction could have occurred at the end of the era however additional Research suggests

that the animal world went through a major transformation at the end of the mid Jurassic these changes were facilitated by the split of Pangia and the shift of continental plates at that time some animal groups became more diverse while other animal species disappeared dinosaurs also changed a lot but what exactly happened to them stay tuned for the next episode where we Cover what happened next the late Jurassic is the third and final Epoch of the period lasting from 163.5 to 145 million years ago the land at that time was nothing like in the middle Jurassic

it Formed two supercontinents instead of one Pangia which was already coming apart of the seams finally split into laurasia in the planets North and Ganda in the South as a result the Atlantic Ocean emerged but it was still Relatively narrow on both continents the climate remained very warm and humid as in the modern Tropics or subtropics at the start of the late Jurassic between 164 and 150 million years ago the earth warmed up again following a slight drop in temperature the temperature reached the daily average of 30° C the planet warmed up due to the

greenhouse effect resulting from numerous volcanic Eruptions they filled the atmosphere with a huge amount of carbon dioxide even at that time seasonal fluctuations on the planet became less extreme than at the start of the Jurassic this was due to the expansion of the central Atlantic and Western Indian Ocean these huge water bodies made the climate on the entire planet more humid reducing deserts to a minimum at the end of the Jurassic the temperature dropped by several degrees The cooling began 150 million years ago and lasted until the early Cretaceous Period thanks to the warm and

moist climate most lands were covered in thick vegetation all year round the forests were full of Cades ginkos and tree ferns but in general coniferous trees prevailed on the planet aroar AI were the most common among coniferous plants and spread across both superc continents these gigantic evergreen Trees were over 60 M High their trunks were just humongous and big heavy cones hung from the branches like magic Giants earrings the pollen from these cones flew thousands of kilometers away giving rise to new coniferous forests despite their gigantic size conifers were sometimes washed away by powerful water

streams during seasonal floods many trees took root on the Sandy mud flats where they found some fertile Soil in addition they would often grow under layers of volcanic ash rich in Mineral fertilizers this is how Conifer trees quickly spread to new areas the Lush vegetation made animal life Thrive even more compared to the middle Jurassic forests and Shores were teeming with various insects in the lower Jurassic their population grew larger than ever before Numerous beetles spread far and wide swarming under forest trees and near the water in the search of food predatory dragonfly flies which

already looked like modern ones Flew Over The Water looking for prey they ate tiny midges but were often hunted themselves by a lot of spiders some spiders were real giants like the ones you see in horror movies one of the largest known fossil spiders with over 5 cm long legs was found in China besides insects the condition of the Jurassic were favorable to almost all other biological species and only amphibians continue to decline giving way to reptiles contrary to this trend salamanders became more populous and spread throughout the planet in particular giant salamanders who lived

exclusively in water were one of the most conspicuous species some of these amphibians have Survived to this day reaching almost 1 and a half M long on the sides these creatures have huge skin folds that increase body surface and improve oxygen absorption from the water the warm Waters of the late Jurassic were also inhabited by many fish bony fish quickly spread in the seas in freshwat some of them were truly gigantic but no one could compete with Lead syus in terms of size scientists found the bones of individuals that were up to 30 m long

which is bigger than a modern whale shark but don't think that lead sick this devoured every Marine creature that came their way just because they were that big according to scientists it was the size that played a cruel joke on huge fish being that big the clumsy and un maneuverable lead sick this couldn't be Good Hunters like modern whales and giant sharks they fed on Plankton Krill being the primary food source which was abundant at the late Jurassic Seas lead syus caught Krill by filtering the water through their gills but the Giants themselves also became

easy prey for predators and perhaps had a terrible death paleontologists have found lead sick this scales bitten by Plaur they believe that even a small sea reptile could easily snatch a piece of meat from such a fish however lead sius were most likely much more tenacious than modern whales and were were quite difficult to kill several days could pass before the sea giant would die and all this time the Predators nod at the prey while it was still alive thanks to the abundance of food in the Jurassic Waters plaur quickly Reproduced and became exceedingly diverse

new species of long neck plaur emerged in the late Jurassic for example crypto cetes and mosur mosa surus were approximately five 5 to 15 M long moreover their long necks with 44 vertebrae accounted for half of this size their body was straight and they heavily relied on Plesiosaurus to survive in the cruel Jurassic world the animals didn't need to raise their necks above the water which made Swimming easier it was also more convenient for them to get close to the fish before feeling water pressure changes caused by large plesiosaurs sharp conical teeth made it easier

for them to hunt prey especially bony fish and spilop pods life was thriving in the sky too the first Birds Arch opter were about the size of a crow lived in Treetops instead of a beak these unusual creatures had a pair of toothy jaws and Freestanding fingers on their wings unlike modern Birds archaeopteris didn't yet flutter in the sky instead they were clumsy L gliding from Branch to Branch terrasaurs flew better than Arch opter and many species of these creatures soared high above the trees in the late Jurassic some of them resembled modern Birds if

you went to the Jurassic and saw a tenac cosmid terrasaur in the sky you would mistake it for a duck or a Waiter among other things they had similar Wings in terms of shape and size terrasaurs flying Style with frequent and Powerful Wing beats was probably similar to that of a waterfall tenac cosmids also had long wings and necks straight jaws and needle-like teeth they were aquatic or semiaquatic parasaurs that typically lived in coastal regions and near Lakes there tenac cosmids caught fish And other small animals they came across when looking for food as for

the land all kinds of reptiles imaginable inhabited both continents of the late Jurassic big and small herbivores and carnivores as fast as modern analou and as slow as hippos here are some of the most fascinating dinosaurs that lived on the planet 163.5 to 145 million years Ago the Allosaurus was considered a formidable Hunter of the Jurassic period on average the Predator was 8.5 m M and sometimes even up to 9.7 m long and 3.5 M High the Giants weighed over 1 and 1/2 tons it's also believed that there were much bigger individuals this is evidenced

by some reptile fragments found by paleontologists these finds suggest the dinosaurs werei up to 11 M long and Weighed over 4 tons all allosauruses had relatively large skulls with short but incredibly massive Jaws in 2005 mandible arm modeling showed their bite force was more powerful than that of any modern animal at the same time scientists believe they held their prey not as tight as Tyrannosaurs however this hardly prevented Allosaurus from dominating among predators of the late Jurassic firstly as we mentioned in previous episodes Tyrannosaurus emerged only in the Cretaceous Period secondly Allosaurus probably didn't rely

that much on the bite force of their jaws like monitor lizards they rather relied on flexible necks and sharp teeth in their struggle to survive special indentations on their teeth enable Allosaurus to easily cut the bones of the [Music] Prey torvosaurus was almost as impressive in terms of size and hunting potential this name was coined by paleontologists to call large and sturdy bipedal predators that could grw up to 9 to 10 m long it's believed that torvosaurus had short but very powerful arms most likely nature is equipped its thumb with a huge claw paleontologists suggested

that with massive skulls strong teeth and Powerful flexible bodies these reptiles were Perfectly adapted to ripping apart and dismembering large carcasses of herbivorous sorop PODS most likely torvosaurus were capable of cracking and eating their prey's bones next to such huge Predators comp suus seemed like miniature dwarfs one of the smallest dinosaurs known they were about the size of a chicken however they were a bit longer about 60 to 90 CM the dinosaur's tails and necks also Had different length they weighed about 5.5 kg for small animals avoiding carnivorous compsognathus was probably a smart move compared

to other reptiles of that era they were excellent hunters and fast Runners compsognathus weren't massive they had strong hind Limbs and very small for liims they caught reptiles and small living creatures instantly tearing them apart with sharp Teeth scientists speculate that comp sthus could hunt in packs and pose a threat to larger prey however it's unlikely that even a huge flock of comp sthus would be able to defeat a stagos surus who looked like a super heavy armored tank like other sorop pods they were herbivores so they didn't see other animals as a potential meal

but instead developed an excellent system of protection against Predator Attacks these Giants were up to 9 M long and weighed up to 7 tons their backs flaunted thick bone plates paleontologists have long argued how the plates were positioned on the animals back so far the scientific Community established that they formed two rows if that's true the plates of one row grew opposite the gaps of the other row some scientists also believe that the plates were movable and could change Their angles the gross were believed to defend stegosaurus from being attacked by larger Predators but the

plates were too fragile and left the sides unprotected this gave rise to a theory that they took part in thermal regulation like a Spinosaurus sail or they were meant to attract a potential partner during mating season or perhaps stegosaurus used them to scare and Mislead Predators with thread and bony plates filled with blood these reptiles look bigger and certainly more formidable however the stegosaurus also had more serious weapons there were two pairs of threatening spikes on the monster's Tails each about a meter long the spikes were quite efficient for self-defense other sorop pods didn't have

such massive Weaponry but their sheer size was enough to guard off Predators all these herbivorous dinosaurs are very similar they all had columnar legs long necks and Tails thick skin and small heads however each of them was unique in its own way which enabled them to better adapt to the environment for example 15m camarasaurus sorop pods had unusually big nostrils scientists believe this kind of natural conditioning system was used by the reptiles to cool down the brain but Camarasaurus necks had only 12 vertebrae and were relatively short they were just over 3 m long another

sorod the Diplodocus had a longer neck with 15 vertebrae until now researchers argue about how sads could live with such necks it seems that different Giants solved this issue in their own way most likely Diplodocus held its neck at up to a 65° angle this is evidenced by their powerful vertebrae that could serve as a Sturdy column base to put this in perspective Brachiosaurus spent most of their time with their necks upright on the contrary the sarmientosaurus that was found a few years ago in Argentina almost always kept its head close to the ground and

looked like a giant vacuum cleaner when eating but let's go back to our Diplodocus Sharp keratinized spikes up to 18 cm High rose menacingly on their backs these gross were probably used for Self- protection and of course Diplo doa's super weapon was their uniquely long tails that had as many as 80 vertebrae and yet Diplodocus lived in small herds to protect themselves even better some individuals in these herds were 32 M long only supersaurus could compete with Diplo in terms of size based on the found bones some animals were 33 to 34 M long and

weighed over 40 tons According to some Estimates however only fragments of superp sores have been found so far in the state of Colorado this makes it difficult to accurately estimate their size can you imagine what modern mice would look like next to such behemoths unimpress andly minuscule however the Jurassic world had enough of those guys and they were quite resilient these mammals perfectly adapted to the environment thanks to Their warm blooded and newly emergent fur being protected from the cold and even sharp eyesight allowed them to hunt at night when large Predators were inactive during

the day they mostly hid in Burrows in the forests and along the shores one of the largest mammals of the late Jurassic was Castor aota a semi aquatic docodon genus in fact even these Champions were tiny they weighed just about 500 to 800 G and their tails were 425 mm long the animals look like modern Otter and their curved teeth closely resemble those of seals therefore scientists assume that cocot mainly fed on fish like otter and seals at the same time the animals wide front paw similar to those of platypuses were perfectly adapted for digging

and searching for food on land these mammals were already partially covered with fur these animal species who are drastically different in size habits and food preferences lived side by side in The Jurassic world let's imagine dense thickets of a tropical forest near a lake many different animal species used to live in this fertile corner of the planet let's imagine a huge brontosaurus eating food in the pond such reptiles were almost 22 M long and weighed over 15 Tons but these Giants had very small heads and brains with a brain the size of a walnut brosaurus

certainly wasn't the brightest when it came to reaction Speed and Ingenuity but it didn't need them none of the inhabitants of those places would dare to attack such a monster brontosaurus could spend hours quietly standing on his thick loglike legs in the lake chewing on soft aquatic plants many reptiles were probably scurrying about in the thick ferns it was a great lunch for the little compsognathus fast dinosaurs were quite efficient at catching no less Nimble Reptiles and other small creatures entire herds of herb iferous dinosaurs may have gathered for lunch in the forest camarasaurus could

easily find food in the forest's lower tier relatively short necks allowed them to eat leaves and young chuts at the bottom of giant trees unlike them huge diplodus type sorop pods must have been able to gnaw only at the Treetops they couldn't bend their Insanely long necks far enough to reach the bottom like scissors Diplodocus cut all the leaves and chots they could reach these Giants needed to eat up to a ton of vegetation a day when the food ran out the herd of giants most likely left in search of a more suitable spot scientists

know this from the pieces of rose quartz found in Jurassic deposits across all Continents Diplodocus swallowed the mineral to improve gastric function other sorop pods used other minerals for better digestion interesting herbivorous reptiles used a special herd pattern when traveling adult dinosaurs surrounded the young in a dense ring to protect them from predators there were a lot of predators who didn't mind feasting on young strayed Dinosaurs but young sorop pods were constantly supervised by adults so the attack would most likely result in the Predators injury or death a herd of giants was quite capable of

killing even a large enemy with powerful tail capable of knocking down trees a predator dinosaur would hardly take such a risk rather would try to catch smaller prey such as a compsognathus but this chicken-sized dinosaur was very fast and could easily Escape and at night all the dinosaurs probably went to rest then mammals such as uraya could come out of their Burrows looking for food these small animals were similar to Modern shrews and were about 70 to 100 mm long strong wide teeth allowed animals to chew literally any plant food including hard seeds and tree

nuts Before Dawn the yarah would no doubt have eaten their share and darted back to a safe spot they certainly Didn't mean to encounter a large Predator this is how dinosaurs days went in their favorite corner of the [Music] planet the usual life of ancient reptiles and other animals on the planet was interrupted Once More by the Jurassic Cretaceous Extinction it turned out to be relatively insignificant wiping out about 20% of all living things on the Planet the extinction was caused by the tectonic plates sinking into the ocean as a result its Waters became cold

and extremely deep this took a major toll on marine life such as m and corals the few survivors moved to the shallow Waters consequently many food chains changed and affected other ecosystems giant sorop pods partially disappeared stegosaurus and Diplodocus died out but their Niche was quickly Filled by new species in the next period the Cretaceous dinosaurs reached their Prime there was probably not a single corner of the forest or the shore without these reptiles it seemed that they would dominate the planet forever but one single disaster wiped them all [Music] out imagine a dense humid

Forest where you can't see the sky for the Trees many tree trunks are very huge in the sky you can see some fat fascinating creatures with some crests incredible Giants make their way from the thickets crushing everything in their path can you imagine that this bulletproof armor doesn't even have a single unprotected spot what is this Mysterious World perhaps some distant planet it may remind you of Pandora from the iconic Avatar movie but you don't need to go that far in fact this is what Earth looked like over 100 million years ago then in the

Cretaceous Period the world was just teeming with Incredible creatures imagine a multi-ton mous sorus That Shook the whole forest with the stomp of its huge feet of course the ancient reptile didn't put out anything but used its long neck to reach some real Delicacies Like the most tender and juicy young choots at the Treetops the Cretaceous Period had so many fascinating animals where did the twins of ostriches and kangaroos come from in the early Cretaceous and how did the ancient reptiles create real fight clubs for training the young the Cretaceous Period or Cretaceous started 145

million years ago this is the longest epic of the Mesozoic Era scientists divided into the early and late Cretaceous the first period lasted almost 45 million years and ended 101.5 million years ago compared to the Jurassic period the Earth changed in many ways the Jurassic Cretaceous Extinction led to the shift in food chains that reshaped other ecosystems as well giant sorop pods partially disappeared and the stegosaurus died out But their Niche was quickly taken by new species dinosaurs stood at the top of the evolutionary pyramid they continued to thrive on Earth by the early Cretaceous

the supercontinent Pangia had split into laurasia and gwanda the tectonic shift started to divide these huge land masses into modern continents as the Atlantic Ocean expanded it formed the North American Ceras approximately 110 million years ago the Mid-Atlantic Ridge separated South America from Africa which formed new tectonic plates the same process in the Indian Ocean pushed India northward Australia and Antarctica started to resemble their modern shape at that time the climate on Earth was relatively cool the cooling of the last Jurassic Epoch lasted until the end Of the early Cretaceous there is evidence suggesting that

the snowfalls were common in the areas near the poles also the tropics became wetter during the Triassic and Jurassic periods in general the Earth was warmer in the early Cretaceous than now the very humid and warm climate of the early Cretaceous caused forests to spread even further they were filled with angio sperms such as Cades gko and Nitrites however flowering plants hadn't yet emerged many coniferous trees grew near the poles a lot of tree FS also grew in the forests and their grass relatives took over unforested areas the poly podial firm was extremely common during

the Cretaceous accounting for 80% of this plant class what makes poly Podi Alis unique is their photo receptors thus such ferns could Efficiently perform photosynthesis in low life for example in the shade of huge trees due to the supercontinent split and further movement of tectonic plates warm shallow Seas flooded vast areas a wide variety of marine organisms lived in these water bodies Rays modern sharks and bony fish became commonplace huge bony fish Axel radii these inhabited sea lagoons freshh lakes and rivers Most of these species were from 1 m 3 3 in to 2 m

6' 7 in Long the Giants ate small fish in krill like its modern relative the celan Exel Rices had elongated flat and wide skull it allowed the fish to suck food from empty spaces between stones and crevices in underwater rocks much like a vacuum cleaner at the same time aquatic reptiles were undoubtedly at the top of the food chain in seas and lakes there Were still some iosaur around but they were mostly replaced by different plesiosaur species the amazing makyra Rosa was probably about 5 m long 16 ft but had a short neck its hind

and forelimbs ended long straight flippers which allowed this plesiosaur to swim quickly and hunt fish and other Aquatic animals once in the mouth of the makyra Rosa the prey had no chance to escape scientists believe that this Animal's teeth are unique they have a triangular shape numerous grooves and small teeth Along The Ridges such Weaponry helped the Predator hold slippery fish and quickly rip it into pieces before swallowing it aerial Predators also look for food near the water real birds were already flying in the early Cretaceous sky and their predecessors the archaeopteris were quite populous

at that time these small crow-sized creatures had curved Beaks and very sharp teeth they could instantly tear apart prey such as small reptiles fish and insects but most of the niches of aerial Predators were occupied by numerous winged reptiles called terrasaurs if we could see the ien Draco terrasaur in the sky we would instantly think of the planet Pandora from Avatar this creature is very similar to the dragon from the iconic picture but you think that this incredible flying Reptile decorated itself with a Crest just for fun well it didn't put it on like a

crown the crest was on the lower jaw of the rran Draco it helped the reptile to hook up the fish and firmly hold it with its teeth and three cenm of the edge of the ikran draco's jaw at as many as 4.5 teeth a special Hook was also found on its Crest it may have served as an attachment point for a food storing throat pouch similar to the modern Pelican this outlandish creature was most likely not as big as a dragon although its exact size is unknown so far only a few very elongated animal skulls

have been found some with with a predominant blade likee Ridge on the underside terrasaur skulls are from 26.8 CM 10.5 in to 28.6 CM 11.2 in Long on land the moist Cretaceous forests were filled with various insects including some new species the most ancient ants known Today were already creating their colonies and some relatives of butterfly and moths called lepidoptera began to fly aphids lived on the trees grasshoppers chirped in the thickets and Gall wasps flew in the sky termites also existed in the crous period having evolved from cockroach ancestors in modern ecosystems they play

an important role in decomposing plant residues and other waste this suggests that prehistoric Termites did a similar job paleontologists also believe that insects have already developed social behavior by building nests together virtually all corners of the planet in the Cretaceous Period were filled with reptiles many dinosaurs Turtles and snakes lived in forests and water bodies but most of them were dinosaurs there were animals the size of a chicken but mostly large reptiles Prevailed other herbivorous reptiles called mamasaurus could easily make it into the record book of the Cretaceous Period If dinosaurs wrote it of all

the ancient reptiles known to paleontologists they had the longest neck these animals were up to 26 M 85 ft long and weighed up to 80 tons and their famous necks averaged about 14 M 46 ft if such a giant somehow miraculously got into our world it could easily look Through the roof of a three-story building however there is another candidate for having the longest neck among the Cretaceous animals the seismosaurus with a 36 M body 118 ft and a weight of 30 to 50 tons it could possibly stretch its neck as high as 20 M

but unfortunately the is not enough information to know this for sure only a few bones of such herbivorous reptiles have been found which isn't enough for An accurate assessment however paleontologists were already able to learn something interesting about the Giants most likely seismosaurus lived in the steps and swamps just like Brachiosaurus they spent most of their lives in the water the young ensured their safety by living in herds while adults more often lived alone these dinosaurs ate mainly swamp and Aquatic vegetation but not only huge dinosaurs Spread throughout the planet mammals successfully evolved too but

were overshadowed by reptiles in those days mammals were still very small mostly the size of a shrew or a little bigger some of them already closely resembled modern animals small tribos fenita looked almost like miniature kangaroos it is even possible that the females carried their young in a skin fold a pouch on their Bellies in addition their body was partially or completely covered with fur they had a modern structure of the ear and some other body parts tribos fenita lived in small Burrows deep underground so most likely they weren't easy prey for the Cretaceous [Music]

Predators all these animals spent their lives looking for food often fighting in bloody battles to win their place in the Sun here's what their life was like in one of the corners of the earth during the Cretaceous Period let's imagine dense thickets of a tropical forest near a warm sea Lagoon in the area of modern North America it can be safely assumed that this place was densely populated with various animal species perhaps some obscure outline towered over the Lagoon water for hours were they tree trunks or some kind Of vines in fact neither it was

a huge long necked plesiosaur such as elasmosaurus looking out for prey most likely the Lagoon was full of fish like other warm water bodies of the Cretaceous Period plesiosaurs had enough food these large animals were good swimmers and divers and were hardly afraid of other Predators attacks the plesiosaurs probably hunted quietly in The lagoon for hours until their belly was fully stuffed with various mollusks then they would go into the shallow water to rest and digest mammals like tribos fenita must have been looking for coniferous tree cones and other fruits of angiosperms for food some

of these small herbivorous animals were marsupial meaning that They Carried their young in a pouch the babies could feed on their mother's milk while she tried to get herself something For dinner in the fern thickets there were a lot of lizards scurrying about and lizards would make a great dinner for flying reptiles for example the Rand Draco terrasaur if it glided to catch the prey with its claws the Nimble lizard would of course try to escape into the thicket if the hunt was was unsuccessful the terrasaur would have to keep hunting undoubtedly it would end

up at Least with some catch because the thick Cretaceous forests were filled with small creatures however no doubt there lived a lot of large animals as well numerous herbivorous dinosaurs probably gathered for lunch in the forest mamasaurus lifted their insanely long necks like fire escapes and nibbled on the tender young leaves at the tree tops when food ran out they moved to other Forests at the same time these reptiles preferred to be in herds which helped them protect the Young from numerous Cretaceous Predators this is how dinosaurs and other animals lived on the Lagoon banks

in the abundance of food and in the favorable climate of the early Cretaceous how did the life of early Cretaceous animals end actually nothing noteworthy happened at the end of this era there were no abrupt Climate changes extinctions emergence of some animal species or Extinction of others scientists simply decided that the appearance of the calcarius nanof fossil pisos spera columna is a good point for dividing the period into the lower and upper Cretaceous be that as it may dinosaurs continued to evolve and their number and species diversity grew anyway what incredible reptiles dominated the Earth

in the upper Cretaceous how high did they climb the evolutionary ladder just before the unexpected disaster wiped them out forever the second stage of the Cretaceous began 101.5 million years ago and ended 66 million years ago at that time dinosaurs could no longer roam freely around the planet inside the earth tectonic plates continued to move changing the shape of the land on the surface America gradually moved Westward causing the Atlantic Ocean to expand the Western Inland sea route divided North America into eastern and western parts India kept heading north towards Asia in the southern hemisphere

Australia and anarctica were probably still connected and began to move away from Africa and South America Europe was a chain of islands by the very end of the period the continents started to resemble their modern shape Africa and South America have acquired their usual outlines but India hadn't yet collided with Asia and Australia was still part of Antarctica on all the continents in the lake Cretaceous the climate was was much warmer than today although it gradually became slightly colder by the end of the Cretaceous the tropics persisted in the equatorial regions and in the north

the seasons began to change the Summers were quite hot and in Winter the temperature significantly Dropped the vegetation on all continents was more or less the same the forest mainly consisted of Cades and ginkos Conifer trees were more common closer to the poles at that time flowering plants had already emerged and by the end of the Cretaceous Period they'd become quite diverse in temperate regions one could see a lot of redwoods and Willows and even Magnolia and Roses decorated the planet with their Beautiful flowers where dinosaurs could take selfies but of course animals couldn't do

it on all continents of the the planet there were thickets of cifras these were deciduous trees and shrubs from the Laurel family which are widespread even today it can be assumed that these plants could survive billions of years of evolution due to their High Vitality sopas could break even from Under stones and grow in such conditions for years many insects fluttered and crawled in the forests and on the banks of water bodies and there were a lot of creatures that would really surprise modern modern people here for example is manipulator modifica autus nowadays some devices

are called that and if we talk about Cretaceous this is the name of the extinct predatory Cockroach this is a nanom monster of the Cretaceous Period with an elongated neck and a freely rotating head the insect's body was only 4.5 mm 0.18 in long and 2 mm 0.079 in wide the Cockroach also had unusually long legs according to scientists this indicates its predatory lifestyle so it was easier for a tiny Predator to chase prey for example microscopic midges the Burma pagon flies were Probably even more cruel Hunters they belong to a species that scientists call

killer flies these are powerful brist ly flies with a short thick prascus covering a sharp sucking larynx and ferx the term killer flies reflects the insect's aggressive habits they tirelessly waited for the prey in an ambush and then quickly caught it right on the Fly New creatures also appeared in the Warm seas and lakes of the late Cretaceous Stingrays and modern sharks populated the sea as well as many bony fish species at the bottom sea urchins and starfish thrived and coral reefs continued to grow iosaur and plaur gave way to huge snake likee mosasaurs some

of them real giants and well over 17 M 56 ft Long mososaurus Preferred to live in the open ocean and deep Coastal Waters sometimes they caught small fish and more often hunted very large and well protected prey [Music] they preferred to eat marine reptiles for lunch especially Turtles and Plesiosaurus these dinosaurs even devoured their own kind resorting to cannibalism scientists believe that at a young age mososaurus could attack animals larger than their size mosasaurus teeth were well adapted for Cutting and crushing and their massive jaw muscles provided tremendous bite force mosasaurus dis remembered their prey

into many relatively small pieces before eating most Giants couldn't swallow large pieces of prey whole the sky of the late Cretaceous Period was already quite densely populated by small real birds and their predecessors Arch opter but the most populous were winged reptiles Terrosaur some of them were absolutely amazing creatures the Tel katas terrasaur is considered one of the largest known flying animals of all time paleontologist have found bones of individuals up to 10 m 33 ft tall but weighing only 70 kg 150 lb as huge as airplanes the creatures had unusually long stiff necks they

had a Crest on their heads although its exact shape and size are still unknown The scientists have calculated the wingspan of flying giants it reached 16 M 52 ft this is higher than a two-story house but the Fantastic properties of the terrasaur don't end there it perfectly combined the air and land lifestyle KOCO Atlas flew effortlessly using hovering and Wing flapping at the same time they were quite good at running on the ground on four legs Like modern hooved mammals this helped the terrasaur to be a successful Cretaceous Predator using a long sharp beak keto

katas caught fish and little vertebrates on land or in small streams well it didn't even avoid carrying like a meu stor and of course the dinosaurs dominated on land big and small slow and super fast herbivores and predators nodosaurus became the most common among Herbivorous giants of the Cretaceous these four-legged reptiles didn't look much like the huge sorop PODS of the Jurassic period they had relatively short limbs compared to the columnar legs of the Jurassic sorop pods they didn't grow to be as high as the mega Giants of the Mesozoic Era on average noasaurus were

6 M 20 ft long and weighed 3.5 tons but this animal was quite well protected their body was covered with an Impenetrable shell of a dense bone plate layer so the Giants could safely eat young shots in the forest without fear of predators their elongated muzzles with massive Jaws small leaf-shaped teeth and a horny beak were perfectly adapted for their diet but other predominantly herbivorous dinosaurs namely Therizinosaurus can be called real monsters of the late CR ious period These reptiles were probably 9 to 12 M long and weighed up to 6 tons they walked on

two massive legs and their forelimbs were very long and reached 3.5 M but their terrible claws made them look like Freddy Krueger from the famous horror movie although the largest specimens of claws found by paleontologists were incomplete they were estimated to be almost a meter long scientists haven't yet come to consensus as to why the dinosaur needed Such equipment however it's obvious that it gave the reptile some survival advantages for example Therizinosaurus could defend themselves with their terrible claws against larger more aggressive Predators such as Tyrannosaurus or fight for territory or a female with the

dinosaurs of the same species it's likely that Theos xenosaurus also use their claws to pull branches with the most suul leaves to Their mouth but they also ate insects and may have torn apart nests of ants and termites finally there is a hypothesis that the claws help the reptiles to rest in a safe place hanging from trees like modern sloths it seems that there were no creatures in the world more terrible than these reptiles with their Mega claws but what would you say about the Hadrosaurus if you got to know it Better these huge animals

were up to 25 ft 7.6 M long and weighed 8 tons like chimeras they had wide noses resembling a duck speak and Hooves on their front paws and on their heads there was a hollow helmet most likely the helmet served as an airbag for the dinosaur and allowed it to keep its head underwater while looking for food or the dinosaur made sounds of danger warning relatives by releasing air from the helmet through Through its nostrils the hydrosaurus skin was covered with small scales and there were bone growths on the skull there was a huge number

of teeth in its scary mouth some animals had about a thousand teeth it was the most toothy dinosaur among all the ancient reptiles that ever existed and yet Hadrosaurus would certainly have seemed almost innocent looking compared to Triceratops it would seem their only Look could render anyone speechless these huge reptiles were 8 m 26 ft long and weighed 9 tons paleontologists consider the largest skull among land animals to be an amazing find about 2.4 m 8 ft long it belonged to a [Music] Triceratops so the monster's head was a little less than a third of

its entire body but what made the Giant tricerat tops head truly scary were three Horns a horn protruded menacingly over the animal's nostrils and one grew over each eye an even more unusual feature of the Triceratops was a kind of firm bone collar around the neck the purpose of this growth as well as the reptiles horns have long been discussed traditionally they were seen as a defensive weapon against predators but now it's considered more likely that the horns were used primarily in courtship and to fight Relatives everything is like that in modern deer mountain goats

and even rhinocerous beetles Triceratop skin was also unique it was incredibly thick and according to some evidence was bristled in some species however the formidable appearance thick skin bone collar and horns didn't save the Triceratops from the attack of the most aggressive predators of the Cretaceous Period in popular culture one can often see Fights of horned reptiles with Tyrannosaurs scientists confirm that this might be true they found a Triceratop skull with teeth marks from a Tyrannosaurus rex on the frontal horn furthermore there were found the heads of these dinosaurs severed from the body also with

traces of T-Rex bites although one shouldn't think the Giants dominated among the late Cretaceous dinosaurs velocir Raptors were much smaller than Tyrannosaurs but Also very dangerous Velociraptor meaning Swift Invader is a medium-sized dinosaur the largest adult specimen known to paleontologist is 2.07 M or 6.8 ft long and weighed up to 15 kg 33 lb the jaws of these fast and aggressive Predators were equipped with 26 to 28 widely spaced very sharp teeth teeth on each side and the front paws were crowned with a large claw that could grow more than 6.5 CM 2.5 in Long

most likely it served to tear apart or grab a resistant prey mammals of the late Cretaceous compared to fascinating reptiles at that time seemed humble looking and inconspicuous basically these were animals resembling modern mice both in terms of size and appearance but there were also absolutely amazing creatures among them for example kopio with long front teeth paleontologists believe this mammal looks like the bizarre Saber-tooth squirrel from the Ice Age franchise despite the fact that the planet was abundant in food for every taste all these animals had to fight hard for their place under the Cretaceous

Sun they spent their lives in constant Pursuit Of Prey and in bloody fight for food the small stru amamus which is literally translated as an ostrich imitator indeed resembled This Modern bird struthiomimus was about 4.3 M 14 ft Long and weighed approximately 150 kg 330 lb these outlandish animals had beautiful big eyes and rather repulsive toothless Jaws they had long thin arms and hands the reptiles three fingers were about the same length and their claws were slightly bent this probably allowed dinosaurs to sometimes hunt fish and insects although they mostly ate plant Foods most likely

struthiomimus served As prey for large Cretaceous Predators however it was certainly not easy for predators to deal with these Dinosaurs the reptiles had unusually powerful hind Limbs and relatively short stiff Tails this allowed them to perfectly balance when running turning and jumping struth amamus is thought to have run at about 50 to 80 kmph 31 to 50 mph so it could easily Escape Enemies but none of them could compare with anky lasur these Cretaceous creatures armored from head to toe were probably not afraid of anyone in the world their entire body was covered with a

shell in the form of bony spikes and plates moreover the larger ones alternated with the smaller ones even the skull and the outer back of the lower jaw of this monster were armored those are some super formidable Weapons however the Monstrous creature didn't need it for attacking others as these reptiles were exclusively herbivorous the dinosaurs used all their armor only to protect themselves from numerous predators in general anulas saurs were massive quadrupedal creatures with short powerful limbs their abdomen was unusually very low only 30 cm 1T above the ground the small triangular teeth and a

long flexible tongue Pro that These animals could breathe while chewing the leaves this also allowed them to eat up to a ton of greenery per day angulosa surus tended to feed on vegetation at a height of 1 M or lower scientists believe that their diet included short firms Cades and other angiosperms Predators certainly avoided the herds of such living fortresses as anosa even the famous Tyrannosaurs were cautious by that time these reptiles had Already begun to dominate among the carnivorous dinosaurs Tyrannosaurus had a key sense of smell and vision powerful jaws and strong sharp teeth

T-Rex weighed up to 7 tons which suggests they had impressive muscle mass the strength and verocity of these animals was something unheard of there is even a theory that Tyrannosaurs from a young age went through military training in the best traditions of the Cretaceous scientists believe that T-Rex organized special fight clubs for the young there the reptiles bit each other with terrible Force but most likely they didn't try to kill each other paleontologists learned about this by examining bite marks on animal skulls but T-Rexes always hunted alone and only a few animals on the planet

could stand up to them Kronosaurus was their only worthy rival in the early Cretaceous these carnivorous monsters Were up to 8 m long and weighed about a ton that is they were longer and heavier than Tyrannosaurs Kronosaurus were called dinosaurs with sharp teeth as they had strong dagger-like teeth thanks to such victories Tyrannosaurs became increasingly common across the planet this is evidenced by the growth of their number scientists have studied all possible factors that Could impact the T-Rex population size for the entire time they existed on the plan Planet researchers calculated the population density of

these Predators the area of their habitat life expectancy as well as the total number of generations according to the data obtained there are about 2.5 billion T-Rex living on Earth over just 2.5 million years on the contrary other plesiosaur Species namely elasmosaurus had incredibly long necks that consist instead of somewhere between 32 to 76 vertebrae at the beginning of the Cretaceous elasmosaurus was on average about 6 M long 20 ft and weighed up to several tons these extraordinary creatures mainly ate Crustaceans and mollusks long necks allowed elasmosaurus to plunge their heads deep into the Water

in order to scoop up as many animals as possible with their mouths this is how perhaps animals lived in one of the corners of the planet on the shores of a lagoon of a warm shallow sea it often rained here and the shores were probably covered with thickets of tall ferns with long Lush chots a little farther there was a green forest there must have been a lot of animals there most likely it was impossible to call it a peaceful and friendly Neighborhood Lagoon inhabitants had violent fights all the time predators were looking for prey

and they also tried to get something for dinner but at the same time not to get into someone else's teeth or claws perhaps one day a young Hadrosaurus came out to the Lagoon to freshen up and catch small aquatic prey as we know its head had a growth in the form of a helmet the dinosaur could swim well if this Crest served as an airbag Most likely the Lagoon water was teeming with fish like other warm cret ious reservoirs and the hydrosaurus would probably decide to catch one of them for dinner but as soon as

it entered the water and was getting ready to hunt something huge could jump out of the depths long and saw sharp teeth would then dig into the Hadrosaurus flesh powerful jaws closed breaking the reptiles bones and the dead carcass would be dragged under the water this Was probably a mososaurus that jumped out of the sea and had a successful hunt such prey was well suited for this water reptile in the second episode of Jurassic Park it's shown how a giant mosasaurus destroyed a boat with people it may well be that the largest individuals could actually

do it but of course after having a prey as huge as a Hadrosaurus the mosasaurus was satiated and didn't go hunting for a long time the small inhabitants of this Corner of the planet were also probably looking for food similar to the saber-tooth squirrel kopio was looking for Conifer cones and other Fallen fruits for food it was careful not to get into any predator's teeth and as such a predator could well have appeared right from the sky this hungry katok katas soared down to get the little animal for dinner but it managed to dodge the

claws of a flying predator and darted into its Burrow however in the thicket of f turns there were definitely many reptiles scurrying around they perfectly matched the food requirements of the flying dinosaur and it could easily keep on hunting in the end no doubt it was bound for Success because there were more than enough small living creatures in the Cretaceous forests however there Liv many large animals too in the forest herds of herbivorous Dinosaurs probably gathered for lunch 12 M Therizinosaurus could reach very high and gwed on tender young leaves from the Treetops when food

ran out they moved to other forests at the same time the reptiles preferred to be in herds such a lifestyle helped them protect their young from numerous Cretaceous Predators unlike them lower animals like 6m nodosaur fed in the middle Forest tears these reptiles also lived in herds Which helped defend off Predators they certainly had strong bone armor but together they could also whip off the enemy with powerful and hard Tails Tyrannosaurus which probably lived in that Forest also went hunting it could take care of its own lunch for example catch a small Velociraptor of course

the T-Rex is an unsurpassed Warrior and would easily tear to pieces this reptile the size of a large Christmas Turkey but don't forget that its potential prey ran fast and like all all the inhabitants of the Cretaceous was constantly on the alert the Velociraptor must have rushed off quickly and disappeared into a Thicket and was difficult for the Tyrannosaurus to chase however the Tyrannosaurus would hardly have been left without prey this Predator always had a chance to catch some slower little dinosaur but what if the T-Rex ran into Another huge reptile in its hunting grounds

and decided to attack it for example it met an 8 m Triceratops it would seem that just one look at this terrible three-horned reptile with a huge collar around its head is enough to scare off the enemy but that was not the case with the Tyrannosaurus Rex this aggressive agile dinosaur could well have pounced at the enemy apparently the unsurpassed T-Rex could easily avoid the horns and bite Through the enemy's thick skin having killed the Triceratops and fed on its flesh it would have gone to rest deep into the forest for several days and scavengers

like Velociraptors and other small dinosaurs may have devoured the remains of the carcass for a long time to come therefore dinosaurs and other animals spent their days fighting on the shores of a picturest lagoon even in the midst of an abundance Of food they had to fight not for life but for death in the end there were probably no absolute winners among them all species survived according to the paleontologist findings the number of individuals and species diversity of dinosaurs on the planet grew until the end of the Cretaceous Period all these animals of course didn't

know that their last day would soon come then apocalypse could not have Been predicted by even the most advanced modern analyst using a quantum computer death came from the sky in the impact of a single asteroid the size of a mountain destroyed most of the living beings on the planet but the celestial killer couldn't completely turned the planet into a lifeless desert dinosaurs became extinct but small and inconspicuous mammals waited out the disaster in breau's deep underground later they took advantage of The lack of competition from the huge reptiles and Achieve Supremacy in the new

world of the cenozoic era though that's another [Music] story The Triassic period spanned about 51 million years from the end of the perian 21.9 million years ago to the beginning of the Jurassic 2.36 million years ago it began after a major biological cataclysm the peran Triassic Extinction iction the Triassic is of central importance in terms of the origin of modern ecosystems because on its onset marks the end of Paleozoic and the origin and expansion of modern evolutionary font new types of corals formed in the marine environment they were much smaller than today in the early

Triassic they clung desperately together to form Reef Patches occupying their biological kn the shell-shaped spilop Pod mollusks the amoia barely Survived the Great Extinction only single species left out of many they quickly replenished lost numbers and gave a wide variety of offshoots scientists still find many fossilized remains if we look at the fossils they resemble modern Nautilus indeed they are close relatives but their periods are distant from each other The shape of amoia shells is a striking example of beauty and Harmony of nature the shell spirals of each mollusks correspond exactly to the very golden

proportion which can be observed almost everywhere in nature as a beauty code it had an influential effect on many cultures in medieval Europe fossil amoia were thought to be coiled snake rings that is why people call them snake stones and believed in their magic Healing properties in the Triassic period the oceans were inhabited by many species of fish however much more interesting creatures were marine reptiles in particular paky plaur and nothosaurus both of which were common in the middle Triassic especially in the waters of the tethis ocean there were also many plod dantius Plesiosaurus and

lizard-like esosa surus the first iosaur appeared in the Triassic and spread rapidly almost all over the world's oceans iosaur were not dinosaurs but represent a separate group of marine vertebrates they shared the Seas of the world with the other great groups of large marine reptiles the Plesiosaurus and mososaurus the environment was unusually favorable a perfect balance between available food and dangerous enemies iosaur means literally fish Lizard the name is quite app because they looked like a combination of fish and reptile the earliest iosaur had long flexible bodies and probably swam by undulating like living eels

more advanced iosaur had compact very fish-like bodies with crescent-shaped Tails osaurus appeared in the early Trias because iosaur were so specialized and Modified for life in the ocean we don't really know which group of vertebrates were their closest relatives they might have been an offshoot of the diapsids the great vertebrate group or descended from a distant relative of the turtles if the last memory is true then it was a return to the ocean Evolution did regressions many times millions of years later the the same happened when land mammals returned To the Sea and evolved into

dolphins and whales the shape of these osaurus is like that of living Tunas and mackerels which are the fastest fish in the ocean like them the later iosaur were built for Speed we can also compare the osaurus to the Dolphins osaurus actually gave birth to live well-developed young iosaur never had to leave the water to eggs they still breathed air and lacked gills in the 9s and in 2012 Japanese scientists finally proved that iosaur were warm-blooded too iosaur were about 2 to 4 M long on average due to most favorable environment some species reached enormous

sizes as they evolved the largest one is the shonisaurus that grew to 15 M the record belongs to a shonar shastasaurus that boasted a length of 21 M the Triassic began with the largest mass extinction in Earth history and ended with a series of substantial Extinctions the extinction was most widespread in the oceans marine reptiles almost entirely disappeared a few species of plesiosaurs and iosaur survived invertebrates such as brocho pods and mollusks especially gastropods suffered a great deal an entire class of conodonts sea eels disappeared completely it is roughly estimated that between 23% and 34%

of entire marine life Disappeared what caused the end Triassic Extinction remains to be determined some scientists blame huge and widespread volcanic eruptions as a trigger some 200 million years ago an increase in atmospheric CO2 caused acidification of the oceans and global warming that killed off 76% of marine and terrestrial species on Earth other scientists blame asteroid or Comet impacts indeed one of the largest Craters on the planet manicouagan Reservoir in Quebec dates back to a late Triassic period later radiometric dating placed it about 13 million years earlier than the Triassic Jurassic Extinction event anyway the

mass extinction created the vacant ecological niches which immediately was taken by surviving species this devastating event cleared the way for dinosaurs to dominate the Earth for the next 135 million years many new dinosaurs emerged in Great numbers on land and ocean the Jurassic period span from 199.000 million to 145.5 million years ago the Jurassic was a time of significant Global change in Continental configurations oceanographic patterns and biological systems during this period the supercontinent Pangia began to split apart into large Northern continent laasia and the southern continent gandana land the Jurassic was Characterized by a warm

wet climate that gave rise to Lush vegetation and Abundant Life the beginning of the Jurassic was conventionally marked by a temperature Spike corresponding to the eruption of huge volcanoes of the central Atlantic magmatic Province ocean surface temperatures during this period are thought to have exceeded 30° C the equatorial and subtropical zones Were so Aid that like life was literally squeezed either into northern and southern latitudes or into the ocean later the species that survived the late Triassic Extinction began to bounce back in the early Jurassic the devastated ecosystems of tropical reefs gradually began to recover

broop pods were numerous and diverse they are marine animals with two shells an upper one and a lower one the right and left halves of each shell are mirror images They moved into a new Niche and remained almost unchanged throughout the Jurassic period echinoderms proliferated in great numbers shapes and colors even today they're very diverse and include starfish brittle Stars sea cucumbers sea urchins sand dollars and kinoid and at this time this riot of shapes and colors was simply incredible the Jurassic period was great for the development of crustations it was then that the first

Real crabs appeared fossil hermit crabs date back to at least the early Jurassic 200 200 million years ago to protect themselves hermit crabs search for abandoned shells when they find one that fits they tuck themselves inside it for protection and carry it with them wherever they they go this habit of living in a borrowed shell gave rise to the hermit crab's name ammonoides were ocean dwelling Mollusks especially spilop pods they were devastated by the late perian Extinction however they recovered fairly quickly to evolve and change in fact they repeated the success scenario of the Triassic

period what about the iosaur that dominated the oceans of the Triassic They too had a tough time during the Great Extinction but managed to squeeze through the bottleneck of evolution due to evolutionary advantages Ichthyosaurus became the kings of the ocean again in the early Jurassic and reached the peak of species diversity the Jurassic period was the Heyday of the temnodontosaurus it was a formidable Predator whose name translates from the Greek as lizard with slashing teeth indeed it has a huge body up to 9 or even 12 M long big mouth with sharp teeth huge eyes

up to 25 cm in diameter its formidable size inspired fear in the Sea inhabitants of those days urosaurus is one member of what still appears to be a small group of ichthyosaurus that had specialized asymmetrical Jaws judging by its bite and other char characteristics scientists concluded that the osur followed exactly the same predatory strategy as a swordfish the elongated upper jaw with thick sharp teeth was used as a weapon to attack potential prey from the Back during the Jurassic period the dominance of the iosaur was threatened by the competing species Plesiosaurus however they could compete

only in size placosa are ancient marine reptiles they appeared in the late Triassic and grew in numbers during the Jurassic period six types of plesiosaurs crossed the Triassic Jurassic barrier and gave a powerful push to their evolution plesiosaurs though Predators Fed mostly on mollusks and fish only the largest species could afford to diversify their diet with sharks and other plesiosaurs in turn they could become prey to the sharks which were numerous in the Jurassic period this period lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago it is the longest third and final period of the

Mesozoic Era when dinosaurs dominated the land the planet was icef free with Forests stretching to the poles however the jassic saw some cooling Trends and they escalated into the early Cretaceous snowfalls were common at the higher latitudes and the Tropics got wetter than in the Triassic and Jurassic periods ocean life was still as diverse as in the Jurassic there is no huge difference between these periods iosaur flourished but only in the early and middle Crustaceus toward the end of the period they did go extinct they did not survive the so-called oxygen-free event its Essence is

that due to a complex of reasons the oxygen content in the atmosphere and the ocean dropped relatively sharply there were a few such events in the history of our planet and all of them had the most dramatic effect on the biosphere marine reptiles survived the entire Cretaceous Period without any Problems more families appeared in the late Cretaceous one of them the mososaurus modern varanas are their direct though distant descendants mososaurus breathed air were good swimmers and were well adapted to the life in the warm shallow Inland Seas of the late Cretaceous as the iosaur became

extinct the mosasaurus took its place and became the dominant Marine Predators some Representatives reached a length of 13 To 17 M Back Then There Were reptiles which managed to lead Aquatic and land Lifestyles very well the most striking example of of such combination is Spinosaurus it was one of the most spectacular carnivorous dinosaurs in the history of the amazing reptiles it was quite huge as for a predator the largest Representatives reached according to estimates from 12 to 16 M and weighed up to 12 tons or more the reptile had Webbed feet and a characteristically shaped

tail which made it a fast and agile swimmer the size and shape of dorsal and codal vertebrae formed a kind of sail which presumably served as a hydr stabilizer little by little the oceans and seas of the planet began to look more like what we have now stingrays fish and sharks were common back then the amoia reached its peak they grew huge in size at the end of the Cretaceous the largest one parapuzosia sepen rensus lived during the late crustaceous period in Marine environments in what is now West philia Germany a specimen was found in

sepen rod in looting Housen Germany in 1895 it measured 1.8 m in diameter being not even a complete shell but only a part it is estimated that the size of the amoia was about 2.5 M you can see it on display at the West failan Museum of Natural History in mster Germany Earth 66 million years ago the end of the Cretaceous Period of the Mesozoic Era the parts of the Pangia supercontinent almost completely drifted apart the planet looked very similar to its modern state but not quite the same South and North America have finally split

by the end of the Cretaceous Period Africa Australia and Greenland had the same shape as today at the same time the outlines of Europe and Asia were just starting to Form mountain ranges of Siberia Mongolia the Andes and the Cordillera the continents were actively emerging the Cretaceous Period lasted 79 million years and became the longest period of the Mesozoic Era the planet's climate changed several times during this time time it was relatively cool by the end of this period ice caps have formed at the poles Winters have become harsher in some places the temperature dropped

below -10° C and as low as - 45 De C in Alaska but still the world was warmer than it is now Lush vegetation covered the continent's surface it was during this period that flowering plants emerged conifers gko and other trees from previous eras formed thick forests which also included modern looking Walnut Ash and Beach The Sod produced by these trees made the top layer of soil more fertile for newly emerging herbs with the Advent of flowering Plants insects also had to evolve butterflies and bees started to fly spreading pollen seeded fruits develop from pollinated

flowers providing food for many animal species including Birds this is what drove the evolution of some herbivorous dinosaurs as well as many mamillion species the number of carnivores ulates insector and primates increased under these favorable conditions admittedly They haven't yet become as large as they are now most mammals back then were small rodents and predators for example a fossilized head of a 20 cm long Chrono dentiacutus was found in Argentina this small mammal is called the Sabertooth squirrel because of its elongated muzzle with long fangs presumably this species ate some insects but larger animals have

already appeared in Madagascar the remains of a huge Ventana ctii Marmet were Found this herbivorous mammal had a rather unusual appearance it had massive crests on either side of its skull for self- protection and an excellent sense of smell the animal weighed 9 kg and was three times bigger than modern marmots however Reno mammo was the real giant among the mammals of the Cretaceous Period it had a 1 M body and weighed 12 to 14 kilog outwardly Reno Mammoth resembled a modern Tasmanian Devil or a squat dog This Predator even hunted small or newly hatched

[Music] dinosaurs and yet dinosaurs were the Pinnacle of prehistoric Evolution they were at the top of the Mesozoic food chain a great number of dinosaur species of various sizes populated all continents the smallest were ulo dantavis krai the head of this miniature reptile was no longer than 14 mm beak Included unfortunately paleontologists haven't yet found the bones of the Torso but given its head size this dinosaur wasn't bigger than a modern hummingbird According to some estimates Alamosaurus was one of the largest animals that ever existed on Earth these dinosaurs were 29 M tall weighed 38

tons and had a 12 M long tail 5 hours till impact the day terrestrial life was changed Completely all animals young and old were going about their day as usual doing some foraging and hunting a herd of 50 Alamosaurus went to the Yucatan Peninsula looking for some fresh Greenery these Giants were herbivores they had to consume up to a ton of vegetation per day to stay in shape it could take them a few days to eat leaves from an entire Forest which made them lead a nomadic Lifestyle a middle-aged predatory Tarbosaurus living on the territory

of present day Mongolia and China was also looking for food this 14 M long species is considered the largest among the predatory dinosaurs of the Cretaceous Period our Tarbosaurus set out to hunt for prey in the flood plain medium-sized animals and small dinosaurs would often come there for a drink so the hunt was going to be a success like any Tarbosaurus this Reptile walked on two hind legs its two fingered forelimbs were disproportionately small relative to the rest of the body and yet they were very helpful in holding the prey or catching fish with long

claws Tarbosaurus main weapon though was about six dozen long sharp teeth reaching up to 85 mm 3 hours until impact meanwhile one adult pack osaurus was also going about his day in North America this 4.5 M long dinosaur weighed About 450 kg and looked quite formidable its skull was protected by a 25 cm thick bone Dome that surely softened the blows when the Great reptile fought its enemies the back of the Dome had bony projections and short spikes protruding upwards from its muzzle pachio sealosaurus was primarily herbivorous it crushed leaves seeds and fruits with its

relatively small sharp Teeth however it appears that this dinosaur also included meat in its diet it ate small amphibians shelless animals mammals perhaps even newly hatched dinosaurs on this day our pachis sealosaurus got closer to the ocean where it found many trees with nutritious seeds it could also eat plenty of huge ammonite mollusks lizards and other Critters in small Lagoons meanwhile a female angulosa went into the forest to grab some lunch in Western North America she was guiding four newly hatched Cubs this reptile looked like a nightmarish Chimera it reached the size of a rhinoceros

or even an an adult African elephant the body of this tetral monster was covered in powerful bone armor and it had a massive Club likee knob on its Tail but despite its intimidating appearance anky losauro was a harmless herbivore the mother of the Cubs didn't seek to kill anyone with her Club the tale serve to protect against predators and cannibal reptiles and so being protected by their mother's formidable tail the family went into a thick forest near the newly formed Rocky Mountains 2 hours until impact meanwhile young dinosaurs had a real massacre in North America

hundreds Of kilometers away from the sight of impending disaster some absent-minded Carnotaurus wandered into the territory of the Tyrannosaurus Rex and didn't notice the owner in time at the speed of up to 50 kmph Carnotaurus can easily run away from its opponent who can only run at 40 kmph but the T-Rex came into view too unexpectedly the Intruder smell gave it away a while Ago T-Rex had an excellent sense of smell compared to other dinosaurs and in terms of ice sight Precision even a hawk might be jealous of this predator in addition the reptile's vision

was binocular its eyes could look in different directions and then the input from each eye was combined to create a single visual image this enabled the dinosaur to Accurately determine the distance to its prey and so the T-Rex furiously attacked the enemy to protect its territory and get some delicious meal at the same time you see this dinosaur never missed a chance to enjoy the Flesh of its own kind it was up to Carnotaurus now to fight back if we saw this fight and had to take a bet everyone would put their money on the

T-Rex the Carnotaurus had no Chance the weight difference was huge Tyrannosaurus weighed up to 6.8 tons and outweighed Carnotaurus by almost 5 tons its muscle mass and therefore strength was multiple times greater even with its horn-like projection above the eyes the Carnotaurus had no chance to fight off the T Rex's super powerful jaws Tyrannosaurus quickly tore the opponent to pieces and began its Feast right Away it was a great Stroke of Luck for the reptile According to some estimates T-Rex needed up to 110 kg of meat per day this is equivalent to daily intake of

three or four Lions as it was preoccupied with lunch the reptile didn't care to look up and so it missed the bright light in the sky that was growing bigger by the second 10 minutes until the impact a huge asteroid was approaching the planet in a few minutes it will kill 75% Of all living creatures causing the Cretaceous paleogene Extinction event in 1980 scientists proposed a hypothesis that it was the asteroid impact that led to This Disaster they found far more iridium in 66 milliony Old Clays around the world than in layers above and below

this is a very rare substance on Earth but there's a lot of it in some types of asteroids which is why iridium is sometimes dubbed a space metal Scientists suggested that the metal was probably brought by an asteroid in a collision [Music] event 10 years later another team of researchers determined the exact sight of the impact a crater with a diameter of 180 km was discovered in the Yucatan Peninsula and was named chickaloo its age coincides with dinosaur extinction chickalo has a huge Amount of iridium and as we move away from the crater's center less

and less metal is found in addition 25,000 animal fossil fragments were recently found in New Jersey quaries these creatures died on the same day at the end of the Cretaceous Period this was another evidence of the mass extinction that followed the asteroid impact 2 minutes until impact while our Tyrannosaurus was Enjoying its lunch a 10 km Rock Wings several trillion tons flew into the atmosphere the gravity's pull was becoming exceedingly stronger accelerating the object to a fantastic 20 km/s speed like a piston the asteroid squashed one 20 km air column after another along with friction

this process heated the giant rock to tens of thousands of degrees C making it much brighter than the Sun at the same time the Tyrannosaurus was having a little break from its lunch it lifted its head up and was Blinded By the Light of the Blazing sky the dinosaur quickly lowered its head closing its eyes but the light was burning them even through closed eyelids the heat incinerated the reptile skin Set Fire to the trees and grass around it a second later the asteroid disappeared over the Horizon leaving the glowing sky behind Tyrannosaurus Rex got

a little break but only for a moment nothing was happening for a few seconds but then the sky got blindingly bright the asteroid crashed into the Gulf of Mexico near the northern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula the energy released by the impact was approximately equivalent of 10 billion Hiroshima atomic bombs in a second the asteroid Penetrated about 20 km into the Earth's crust the whole globe was shuttering like a thousand Bells from the impact to put this into perspective a relatively recent croca toic volcano eruption caused half of crew members eard drums to rupture on

one of the ships 70 km away the asteroids impact was a million times more powerful furthermore shock waves rushed in all directions faster than the speed Of sound right after the Collision they were so strong that they skinned animals alive lifted them up into the air swirled them around and crushed everything even hundreds of kilometers away from the crater the heaviest dinosaurs flew like balloons the T-Rex sustained a severe concussion and died in an instant immediately the shock wave lifted its body up into the air for several Seconds the wave continued to spread going a

few times around the globe but even before killing the T-Rex the asteroid destroyed the herd of elmosaurus that we saw previously animals were grazing right next to where the infernal rock fell dinosaurs couldn't escape the unthinkable heat it burned everything to the ground turning animal bones to ashes meanwhile the female anosa surus With her four babies was peacefully eating leaves in the forest they were hundreds of kilometers away from the impact site however they died even before the Alamosaurus the red hot asteroid caused huge fires while passing through the atmosphere one of them broke out

where a family of angulosa was grazing the fire instantly incinerated the forest leaving the reptiles no chance to survive the asteroid also knocked out 15 Trillion tons of rock from the planet and set it high into the sky a small portion flew into outer space while the remaining part including house-sized Boulders began to fall back from orbit at the same time glass rain started it was raining hot 5 mm Rock balls the stone hail and the scorching rain have killed innumerable animals however the pilosa orus who was hunting near the ocean in North America Was

lucky it didn't die from fires and boulders falling from the sky but a bit later when a gigantic 100 m tsunami Rose from the ocean to get some idea about its scale consider the devastating tsunami in Japan of 2011 the waves were barely 10 m High nonetheless almost the entire Island state incurred losses but the giant tsunami caused by the asteroid impact went thousands of Kilometers deep into the land it flooded almost the entire territory of the future USA wave traces have even been found in North Dakota one of these waves took the pachy sealosaurus

under dragged its body into the ocean and buried it in the abyss the area of modern Mongolia just then an elderly Tarbosaurus was looking for a prey here 15,000 km from the explosion Epicenter hundreds of dinosaur species still roam the wooded areas meanwhile the disaster was getting closer by the minute the asteroid impact triggered a series of terrible earthquakes measuring up to 11.2 points the Tremors were about 50 times stronger than any earthquake known to humanity the most powerful great Chalan earthquake of 1960 had a 9.5 magnitude increasing this number by 1 Would mean 30

times more powerful energy release the planet was shaking so hard that all the volcanoes woke up and began to erupt about 70 billion tons of pulverized Stones soot Ash and carbon monoxide rose up as a result of eruptions then they began falling back into the atmosphere the friction against the air caused enormous temperature increase a huge hot cloud of dust stormed across the planet burning Everything in its path it was approaching Mongolia at a speed of 18,000 km hour the temperature here Rose to 150° C an hour and a half after impact all living creatures

died or rather almost all creatures our Tarbosaurus and several animals managed to escape by hiding in an underground cave they could hide out here while the killer Cloud passed by soon the temperature began to drop This was followed by acid rain flooding the Earth because several hundred billion tons of sulfur compounds were thrown into the troposphere along with other rocks for weeks sulfuric acid was pouring from the sky all over the planet it poisoned The Soil and Water bodies a dense blanket of dust ash and soot wrapped around the planet after volcanic eruptions not letting

any light and heat In even at noon it was as dark as at night the temperature dropped by 28° C impact winter set in when hunger and thirst drove the Tarbosaurus and other animals out of the cave they saw a world that looked strikingly different from before it was cold dark and deserted only Decay fungi and moles were able to reproduce under such conditions there was no food for dinosaurs on the planet countless animals starved to Death our Tarbosaurus didn't manage to survive either perhaps it was the last dinosaur on the planet however one can

assume that occasional dinosaur eggs have been preserved intact somewhere underground young individuals hatched from them after some time tiny grp groups of dinosaurs emerged here and there but cold weather hunger and disease contributed to their final Demise the era of dinosaurs came to an end the cenozoic era began the dust clouds dissipated over the planet over the course of several decades and heat and sunlight were finally able to reach the surface nature revived from the ruins first huge horse tales and ferns emerged yet again they were closely followed by angiosperms and [Music] Grass other animals

who' been dominated by dinosaurs for millions of years were ready to March bravely into the new era mammals some of them survived the disaster in underground burrows others stayed on trees they become well adapted to extreme conditions were quick to reproduce and consumed relatively little food they were guaranteed to thrive on the renewed [Music] Planet the success of mamalian evolution led to the emergence of homo sapiens who is now the dominant species on Earth but we're a long way from setting the dinosaurs record as it's been a few million years since since we've conquered the

world only time will show if people will rule the planet for 160 million years like ancient lizards [Music]