Hey!!! If you don't know why you're seeing diNOVEMBER posts in JANUARY, look at day 11 :))
DINOVEMBER DAY 12: 200MYA, HETTANGIAN STAGE; LESOTHO
The geological clock has just ticked over from the Triassic to the Jurassic, marked by an extinction event that brought to an end many animal lineages, including the last of the dicynodonts, some strange eel like fish called conodonts, and the majority of the archosaurs, with only 3 groups remaining. This extinction is thought to also be related to the breakup of Pangea, with volcanic activity in what will become the Central Atlantic arising as a result of a massive rift that threatens to tear the supercontinent in two.
Despite the hardship, the 3 archosaur groups that remain are doing well for themselves. One group, the psuedosuchians, are primarily terrestrial predators, and will eventually give rise to modern crocodiles. The second, the pterosaurs, have taken to the skies, becoming the first ever flying vertebrates. The last has done best of all, for this is now a world of the dinosaurs.
The primary example of the dinosaurs’ success are the sauropodomorphs, a group of elephantine herbivores who have reached sizes unimaginable by other creatures; the largest land animals before them weighed 2 tonnes maximum, whereas this 9m long Antetonitrus weighs 7 tonnes. They wander through the scrub of the Karoo basin looking for vegetation to eat, using their long neck to reach leaves that others cannot. There is more than foliage in this tree however, for they have run into a Heterodontosaurus, another type of herbivorous dinosaur. He’s an ornithischian, a different dinosaur lineage that prefers speed over size. He has a sharp beak for cropping plant matter, a pair of tusks for fighting other males, and strong legs for fleeing from predators like the Coelophysis we met last time. The Heterodontosaurus will bear his tusks in a threat to the Antetonitrus before realising that they do not care and scampering off. For these dinosaurs, the future is bright.
