Three truths
- Timed
- Began about 233 million years ago · the last 5.5% of life's story
- Named
- ≈11,000 named living species · 0.6% of all named
- Weighed
- ≈0.007 Gt C · 0.001% of all life's carbon
Eukaryotes · animals · clade
Dinosaurs
Dinosauria
Living · roughly 11,000 described species
A group of reptiles that dominated land ecosystems for much of the Mesozoic. All non-bird dinosaurs died out about 66 million years ago; birds carry the lineage on.
They ruled land for 165 million years, and still fly around as birds.
Key characteristics
- Upright legs held under the body
- Includes birds
- Ranged from small feathered forms to the largest land animals ever
- Branched off
- About 250 million years ago (approximate)
- Parent lineage
- Archosaurs
Child lineages
Classification
- First common ancestor (LUCA)
- › Archaea
- › Asgard archaea
- › Heimdall and complex-cell line
- › Complex cells (eukaryotes)
- › Amorphea
- › Opisthokonts
- › Holozoa
- › Animals
- › Parahoxozoa
- › Bilaterians
- › Deuterostomes
- › Chordates
- › Vertebrates
- › Jawed vertebrates
- › Bony vertebrates
- › Lobe-finned vertebrates
- › Four-limbed vertebrates
- › Amniotes
- › Reptiles and birds
- › Archosaurs
- › Dinosaurs
Sources
- Dinosaur (Wikipedia) · Wikipedia
- TimeTree: the timescale of life · TimeTree
- Open Tree of Life · Open Tree of Life
- Tree of Life Web Project · Tree of Life Web Project