DINOSAURS

Welcome to the Cretaceous period, the last period of time in which dinosaurs lived. Beginning at the last part of the Mesozoic, the Cretaceous stretched from 140 million years ago to 65 million years ago. This was a time of great change on Earth. The single landmass known as Pangaea had broken up into northern and southern hemispheres and this resulted in worldwide climate changes. These changes in climate allowed flowers and grasses to appear for the first time. This was also a time when some of the most well known dinosaurs walked the Earth - Tyrannosaurus rex, Triceratops, Velociraptor and Spinosaurus all lived in the Cretaceous.

Dinosaur differentiation becomes common It was a time when different species and genera of dinosaurs began to evolve as a result of the continents moving apart. This caused individual animals of one species to develop differently than others of the same species as they became separated by water or other natural barriers and had to adapt to new environments. Some got bigger, some got smaller, some had to change what they ate - many simply died out because they could not adapt.