Horrible Science: Meteor for the Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs lived on Earth millions of years ago but met a sticky end thanks to a meteor…

Using fossils for information, scientists believe there were between 900 - 1000 different species of dinosaurs.

Animals such as crocodiles, alligators and platypuses were also around when dinosaurs lived on Earth but managed to adapt and survive.

Dinosaurs lived during three different time periods.

• Triassic
• Jurassic
• Cretaceous

Triassic

The Triassic period occurred 252 - 201 million years ago when Earth was a lot warmer than it is today.

During the Triassic period, small dinosaurs and modern day reptiles such as crocodiles and tortoises started to live on land. Whilst reptiles were the main species on land and in the oceans, the first flying reptile/ dinosaur pterosaur took to the sky.

Jurassic

The Jurassic period occurred 201 - 145 million years ago. Dinosaurs continued to live on Earth and started to get bigger like the Brachiosaurus and Diplodocus, who were both approximately 27m long.

Later on in the Jurassic era, the first birds, lizards and butterflies started to appear.

Cretaceous

The Cretaceous period occurred 145 - 66 million years ago.

Dinosaurs such as the T-Rex, triceratops and velociraptor roamed the Earth which were a lot bigger than the dinosaurs who were around previously.

Extinction

The extinction of dinosaurs occurred 66 million years ago but no-one is quite sure how or why the extinction occurred. The common theory is that a meteor around seven and a half miles wide hit the Earth as well as volcanic eruptions which caused large scale climate change. These events saw 75% of all life on Earth wiped out.

Horrible Science fact

Fossilised dinosaur poo is called corprolite. The biggest ever coprolite was discovered in 2019 and is believed to be t-rex poo. The people who found it nicknamed it Barnum.

Find out more about dinosaurs and dinosaur poo here