![]() ![]() Our research is focused on understanding this “long fuse” in dinosaur evolution. This extinction decimated many of the earlier reptile and amphibian groups, and may have created environmental space for dinosaurs and other new groups to evolve.įor the first 40 million years of their evolution dinosaurs remained the minority in a world ruled by other reptile groups – those with obscure names such as therapsids, aetosaurs and rauisuchians. The PT extinction was the most severe in the history of Earth, and was probably driven by intense volcanic eruptions and associated rapid climate change. Growing evidence suggests that dinosaur origins may have formed part of the long-term recovery of ecosystems from the Permo-Triassic (PT) mass extinction. The first dinosaurs appear in the fossil record around 240 million years ago, in the Middle Triassic. Our research team alone has described 11 new species since 2005. In the last two decades the rate of discovery of new dinosaur fossils and species has rapidly increased – a new dinosaur species is now named every 1.5 weeks. Now is an exciting time to research dinosaurs. Our research team at the University of Birmingham and the Lapworth Museum are hoping to unravel the story of dinosaur origins in the Triassic period. While most attention has been on their extinction, a more interesting question is: how and why did the dinosaurs become so successful? They lived on all continents including Antarctica and ranged in size from pigeon-sized species weighing less than 1 kg up to 70 tonne herbivorous giants that were the largest animals to ever walk on land. During this time dinosaurs diversified into more than 1,000 ecologically and morphologically diverse species. In fact, far from failures, dinosaurs were highly successful.ĭinosaurs reigned as the dominant large vertebrates on land for 135 million years, twice the length of time of mammal dominance which followed the dinosaur extinction. But this event negatively skews our perception of the dinosaur story. A massive meteorite strike caused their mass extinction about 65 million years ago. Yet today, dinosaurs are stereotypical symbols of failure, because, apart from birds, none of their lineage have survived. They gripped the public imagination, and dinosaurs have never left it since. Hawkins’s models, which still stand in Crystal Palace Park in London, were the first life-size reconstructions of dinosaurs. For 20 privileged Victorians, Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins held a lavish New Year’s dinner party in 1853 inside a model of a dinosaur that was created for the Great Exhibition held two years earlier.
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