Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The African bush elephant (foreground), Earth's largest extant land animal, and the Masai ostrich (background), one of Earth's largest extant birds. In zoology, megafauna (from Greek μέγας megas "large" and Neo-Latin fauna "animal life") are large animals. The precise definition of the term varies widely, though a common threshold is ...
The Mesozoic Era [3] is the era of Earth's geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods.It is characterized by the dominance of gymnosperms such as cycads, ginkgoaceae and araucarian conifers, and of archosaurian reptiles such as the dinosaurs; a hot greenhouse climate; and the tectonic break-up of Pangaea.
Sauropterygians were a diverse group of aquatic reptiles adapted for flipper-based aquatic locomotion. This group included the plesiosaurs, nothosaurs, and placodonts. Mosasaurs were a group of large, aquatic squamates (relatives of modern-day lizards and snakes) which became the dominant marine predators towards the end of the Cretaceous period.
Today, the 5,500 species of living synapsids, known as the mammals, include both aquatic and flying species, and the largest animal ever known to have existed (the blue whale). Humans are synapsids, as well. Most mammals are viviparous and give birth to live young rather than laying eggs with the exception being the monotremes.
Repenomamus (Latin: "reptile" (reptilis), "mammal" (mammalis) [2]) is a genus of opossum- to badger-sized gobiconodontid [3] mammal containing two species, Repenomamus robustus and Repenomamus giganticus. Both species are known from fossils found in China that date to the early Cretaceous period, about 125-123.2 million years ago.
Pages in category "Mesozoic animals" The following 3 pages are in this category, out of 3 total. This list may not reflect recent changes. C. Clioscaphites; R.
However, it is a considerably larger animal, around the size of a wild turkey, being among the largest known flying Mesozoic paravians. Another dromaeosaurid species, Deinonychus antirrhopus, may display partial flight capacities. The young of this species bore longer arms and more robust pectoral girdles than adults, and which were similar to ...
Many of the so-called 'dinosaur' remains found on New Zealand are actually mosasaurs and plesiosaurs [citation needed], both being Mesozoic predatory marine reptiles. The largest mosasaur currently on public display is Bruce, a 65-70%-complete specimen of Tylosaurus pembinensis dating from the late Cretaceous Period, approximately 80 million ...