144-213 Million Years Ago
Highlights of the Jurassic
- Funny enough most of the Dinosaurs in the 1993 movie Jurassic Park were not alive in the Jurassic Period, they were from the Cretaceous Period.
- Temperatures were higher than those of today (by about 10*C!)
- In the middle of the period, the super continent Pangaea began to break up into two the two large continents of Laurasia and Gondwana
- At the end of the period the first signs of flying, bird like dinosaurs were seen with the animal called the Archaeopteryx
- Also at the end the period the first flowering plants began to grow
Dinosaurs are a group of now extinct animals who roamed the planet during the Mesozoic era. They first appeared approximately 251 million years ago and went extinct 65.6 million years ago.
Jurassic Dinosaurs (Click to jump to Dinosaur)
These are the fossils of the Jurassic period that we have in our collection. Remember these are not representative of the total of Jurassic creatures.
See our Dinosaur bits and pieces image gallery!
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Order: Marine Reptile (Not a dinosaur)
- Length: 6.5 feet
- Weight: 200 pounds
- When did I live? Early Jurassic 206-180 million years ago
- Where? Oceans, near surface; fossils found near England; Germany; Greenland and Canada
- What family did I belong to? Shastasauridae
- What food did I eat? Fish, Octopus, and other animals
- What special feature did I have? They gave birth in the water to live young
Cryolophosaurus “Frozen-Crested Lizard”
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Order: Saurichia, lizard-hipped dinosaurs
- Length: 20 feet
- Weight: 525 kg
- When did I live? Early Jurassic Period, about 196-190 million years ago
- Where? Antarctica
- What family did I belong to? Theropoda, Carnosauria
- What food did I eat? I ate plant-eating dinosaurs, likeprosauropods
- What special feature did I have? Crylophosaurus had a forward-facing crest on its head. It is also known informally as Elvisaurus, due to the crest’s likeness to Elvis Presley’s hairdo