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Antetonitrus: The First of the Giants

Back in the Late Triassic, Antetonitrus was king of kings, the beast of beasts. Why? Cause by then, nature’s laws were rapidly changing. By 200 mya, whoever was the biggest, or the fastest, or even just the one who’s capable of crushing a whole dino under their foot. Antetonitrus was the local bully, even though it was a docile herbivore. It could get pretty mean, and no one likes messing with a dinosaur that has been estimated at a length of 28 metres. It was by all means the world’s first big sauropodomorph, and it marked the start of an era of gigantic, megaton creatures that would rise to their rival carnivores, and respond with sheer size.

Antetonitrus’s anatomy is remarkably similar to that of later sauropods, in saying that roughly 50% of their anatomy is shared. So, what was the other 50% equal to? The remaining amount is, in a stark contrast similar to Plateosaurus, in sharing a similar musculoskeletal structure in the foot. It appears to be a sauropod transitioning between a semi-quadrupedal state of walking to a fully semi-erect quadrupedal way of walking. Its neural structures are nearly fully reptilian, and its ontogeny rate is moderate. It requires high amounts of energy and food to fuel its humongous body. Just like later sauropods, it had hollow bones to reduce weight in an attempt to lower daily intakes.

Quick Facts: Antetonitrus
Age: Late Triassic, Norian
Length: Estimates vary from 11m to 28m
Habitat: Arid
Weight: Estimates vary from 1.5 metric tons to 9 metric tons
Formation: Southeast Africa, Lower Elliot

Moving on; Coelophysis bauri

Now, we can finally see that dinosaurs are becoming more specialised for living in a new biome that required the ability to withstand perilous-for-human climates. After a long period of nearly 10 million years of trial-and-error evolutionary experiments, the true theropod dinosaurs finally arose to become the force to be reckoned with of the Mesozoic, with a variety of weapons, such as 12 inch long foot claws, a 4.5 ton bite, or a skull that could withstand stresses up to 55000 Nm. For our Coelophysis, nothing will beat amazing reflexes, speed and long hands bearing slender claws.

Coelophysis is always shadowed into darkness by its 7 metre cousin, the fearful, double-crested Dilophosaurus. After all, its only 3 metres. But still, it was second on the food chain of Hettangian America. It could feed on any type of prey, including lungfish, prosauropods, insects. It’s small size allowed it to withstand nature’s tests.

Although it was named in the 1850s, it went through a lot of name changing until it became like the Coelophysis we know today. It was found and named by the legendary pioneer of palaeontology, Edward Drinker Cope but it was assigned to as part of Coelurus, a maniraptoran dinosaur from the Late Jurassic. Soon, it was renamed Syntarsus, a name which was in fact already preoccupied by an insect. Finally, it became the Coelophysis we love.

Here’s a strange fact about its ceratosaurian anatomy; unlike Dilophosaurus or Lilliensternus, it’s light and shallow when looked at from the bones. It only weighs about 20 kg approximately,unlike its 1 ton relative.

Quick facts:
Coelophysis bauri
3 metres
21 kg
Early Jurassic; Hettangian

Panphagia

This dinosaur finally got released from its 240 million year-old imprisonment in rough sediment in 2006 by an Argentinian palaeontologist called Ricardo N. Martínez. But it took three years until it was formally documented and the papers were released in 2009.

Panphagia is quite tiny for a sauropod. Just like Herrerasaurus, Eoraptor and all other herrerasaurs, these used to be thought as not belonging to any particular branch of the dinosaur family tree. However, in the new dinosaur family tree, herrerasaurs and prosauropods are assessed as basal saurischians along with only sauropods, while theropods and ornithischians are grouped together as Ornithoscelida.

Panphagia is quite clandestine, because it’s specimens would go into a trading card game as hyper-legendary. To be honest, Panphagia is next to totally inadequate with only a few bits and pieces here and there. But luckily, we know enough to know that Panphagia was most likely a semi-quadrupedal
omnivore with reasonably large thumb claws which it could use to catch or spear small animals on to the end of its hook-like claws. This is the cause of the previous misplacement of the prosauropods Eshanosaurus, first thought to be a therizinosaur coelurosaurid.

Quick Facts-Panphagia:
Size: 1.7m
Weight: 2-10kg
Type: lightweight, small omnivore
Habitat: Ischigualasto Formation, Argentina
Related Animals: Saturnalia, Eoraptor

Herrerasaurus

Herrerasaurus’ discovery date is quite a mystery. But we know that it was first discovered by a  rancher by the name of Victorino Herrera, who found it in his vast expanse of land. Soon, it was named in 1963 by a palaeontologist by the name of Osvaldo Reig. It was named in honour of the discoverer, hence its name meaning “Herrera’s lizard.”

Finally, dinosaurs were achieving bigger sizes. Somehow, there didn’t seem to be a striking evolutionary process for this gargantuan, beastly predator. The reason why? Dinosaurs came into existence in the Late Triassic (Late Carnian), and the first dinosaurs to descend from their dinosauromorph (dinosaur form) ancestors were Eoraptor, Pisanosaurus, Panphagia and guess who, Herrerasaurus.*

The biggest and baddest of the non-theropod predators was a whopping 7 metres ( well, quite frankly, whopping for its time) in length from its gaping mouth to the tip of its tail! And, even more disbelieving, this was a sauropod ancestor. If so, how did its descendants turn into 20+ metre, tranquil, herbivorous heavyweights that wouldn’t hurt a fly?

Well, maybe somewhere along the track, to accustom to their surroundings and to evade predators using sheer gigantism, prosauropods, which we’ll come to later, and their cousins, the herrerasaurs made the huge switch. We can see this kind of middle stage in dinosaurs like Antetonitrus, which can adapt to an omnivorous life of insect grubs and plant matter. The diet of insect larvae would allow Antetonitrus to grow to the huge size of 28 metres estimated for it.

Quick facts-Herrerasaurus:
Length: 6.8 metres
Weight: 350 kilograms
Habitat: Northern Argentina; Ischigualasto Formation
Type: Lightweight, mid-size predator
Related Dinosaurs: Sanjuanasaurus, Eoraptor, Frenguellisaurus, Ischisaurus, Staurikosaurus, Alwalkeria, Chindesaurus

Eoraptor

Eoraptor is one of those dinosaurs that we aren’t quite sure of. Eoraptor was one of the first dinosaurs ever to walk on the planet and lived in the Late Carnian stage of the Triassic. This was a time when the Earth had vanquished the previous Permian synapsids, and new ecological niches were opening up, creating room for a new bunch of animals. The landscape was dry and arid, including the home of our Eoraptor, which were the dusty sands of Patagonia.

Eoraptor has a rather confusing dental structure. It’s teeth suggest that it was a sauropod (this was one of the things that were the causes for the change in the dinosaur family tree structure),meaning it was a herbivorous dino that was the predecessor to the famous Brachiosaurus. But the rest of the body anatomy suggests a totally different theory; that Eoraptor and its kin, the herrerasaurids, were all part of the theropod family tree. It’s slender, long legs, armed with sharp claws indicate that it was a speedy runner. The claws on its hand bear a very primitive feature: instead of the typical 3 fingers, it had an extra two, the last one too small to be used. This added up to the fact that Eoraptor was probably an agile hunter, occasionally feeding on plants.

Scientific Fact File:

Scientific name: Eoraptor lunensis 

Length: 2 - 4 metres

Diet: Possible omnivore

Habitat: Dry, arid plains

Location: Argentina 

Ages: Further Divided

Last time, we were venturing through the eons, eras, and epochs. But today, we’ll be venturing into the zenith of geological times: ages.

If I mention the time of T. Rex in basic forms, I would be saying Late Cretaceous, Mesozoic Era in the Phanerozoic Eon. But here’s the catch. Saying just Late Cretaceous would mean that it lived alongside much older genera such as Spinosaurus aegypticus.

Here is where ages come into play. In total, there are 30 ages just in the Mesozoic. Here they are.

Early Triassic:
Induan
Olenkian

Middle Triassic:
Anisian
Ladinian

Late Triassic:
Carnian
Norian
Rhaetian

Early Jurassic:
Hettangian
Sinemurian
Pliensbachian
Toarcian

Middle Jurassic:
Aalenian
Bajocian
Bathonian
Callovian

Late Jurassic:
Oxfordian
Kimmeridgian
Tithonian

Early Cretaceous:
Berriasian
Valanginian
Hauterivian
Barremian
Aptian
Albian

Late Cretaceous:
Cenomanian
Turonian
Coniacian
Santonian
Campanian
Maastrichtian

The Age of The Earth

The age of the Earth is divided into 1 eon or 4 eras. These 4 eras housed creatures so bizarre, they looked like they could be the main characters in a 21st century sci-fi movie. Would you believe that it all started from 1, single, cell, which started to make oxygen while some other stray cells used that oxygen? Eventually, they formed colonies, and grew bigger and bigger...

The names of these unique, magnificent eras were the Pre-Cambrian (4.6 Ga (billion years ago), Paleozoic (544 million years ago), Mesozoic (250 mya), and finally, the one that houses us, the Cenzoic (65.5 mya to present). When we’re studying dinosaurs, we’ll be looking at the famed Mesozoic Era.

Now, we are going to venture into geological measurements and notations. The Mesozoic houses the Triassic, the Jurassic and the Cretaceous. These are again divided into epochs; Early, Middle and Late ( in the case of the Cretaceous; Early and Late).