{"id":20835,"date":"2023-05-30T15:29:38","date_gmt":"2023-05-30T07:29:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chinosaur.com\/?p=20835"},"modified":"2023-05-30T15:29:38","modified_gmt":"2023-05-30T07:29:38","slug":"about-dinosaurs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinosaur.com\/index.php\/2023\/05\/30\/about-dinosaurs\/","title":{"rendered":"About Dinosaurs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dinosaurs<\/b>\u00a0are a diverse group of\u00a0reptiles<\/a>[note 1]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0of the\u00a0clade<\/a>\u00a0Dinosauria<\/b>. They first appeared during the\u00a0Triassic<\/a>\u00a0period<\/a>, between 245 and 233.23\u00a0million years ago<\/a>\u00a0(mya), although the exact origin and timing of the\u00a0evolution of dinosaurs<\/a>\u00a0is a subject of active research. They became the dominant terrestrial\u00a0vertebrates<\/a>\u00a0after the\u00a0Triassic\u2013Jurassic extinction event<\/a>\u00a0201.3\u00a0mya and their dominance continued throughout the\u00a0Jurassic<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Cretaceous<\/a>\u00a0periods. The\u00a0fossil<\/a>\u00a0record shows that\u00a0birds<\/a>\u00a0are\u00a0feathered dinosaurs<\/a>,\u00a0having evolved<\/a>\u00a0from earlier\u00a0theropods<\/a>\u00a0during the\u00a0Late Jurassic<\/a>\u00a0epoch, and are the only dinosaur lineage known to have survived the\u00a0Cretaceous\u2013Paleogene extinction event<\/a>\u00a0approximately 66\u00a0mya. Dinosaurs can therefore be divided into\u00a0avian dinosaurs<\/b>\u2014birds\u2014and the extinct\u00a0non-avian dinosaurs<\/b>, which are all dinosaurs other than birds.<\/h4>\n

Dinosaurs are varied from\u00a0taxonomic<\/a>,\u00a0morphological<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0ecological<\/a>\u00a0standpoints. Birds, at over 10,700 living\u00a0species<\/a>, are among the most diverse groups of vertebrates. Using fossil evidence,\u00a0paleontologists<\/a>\u00a0have identified over 900 distinct\u00a0genera<\/a>\u00a0and more than 1,000 different species of non-avian dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are represented on every continent by both\u00a0extant<\/a>\u00a0species (birds) and fossil remains. Through the first half of the 20th century, before birds were recognized as dinosaurs, most of the scientific community believed dinosaurs to have been sluggish and\u00a0cold-blooded<\/a>. Most\u00a0research conducted since the 1970s<\/a>, however, has indicated that dinosaurs were active animals with elevated\u00a0metabolisms<\/a>\u00a0and numerous adaptations for social interaction. Some were\u00a0herbivorous<\/a>, others\u00a0carnivorous<\/a>. Evidence suggests that all dinosaurs were\u00a0egg-laying<\/a>, and that\u00a0nest<\/a>-building was a trait shared by many dinosaurs, both avian and non-avian.<\/h4>\n

While dinosaurs were ancestrally\u00a0bipedal<\/a>, many\u00a0extinct<\/a>\u00a0groups included\u00a0quadrupedal<\/a>\u00a0species, and some were able to shift between these stances. Elaborate display structures such as horns or crests are common to all dinosaur groups, and some extinct groups developed\u00a0skeletal<\/a>\u00a0modifications such as\u00a0bony armor<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0spines<\/a>. While the dinosaurs’ modern-day surviving avian lineage (birds) are generally small due to the constraints of flight, many prehistoric dinosaurs (non-avian and avian) were large-bodied\u2014the largest\u00a0sauropod<\/a>\u00a0dinosaurs are estimated to have reached lengths of 39.7 meters (130 feet) and heights of 18\u00a0m (59\u00a0ft) and were the largest land animals of all time. The misconception that non-avian dinosaurs were uniformly gigantic is based in part on\u00a0preservation bias<\/a>, as large, sturdy\u00a0bones<\/a>\u00a0are more likely to last until they are fossilized. Many dinosaurs were quite small, some measuring about 50 centimeters (20 inches) in length.<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dinosaurs\u00a0are a diverse group of\u00a0reptiles[note 1]\u00a0of the\u00a0clade\u00a0Dinosauria. They first appeared during the\u00a0Triassic\u00a0period, between 245 and 233.23\u00a0million years ago\u00a0(mya), although the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinosaur.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinosaur.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinosaur.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinosaur.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinosaur.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20835"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/chinosaur.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20837,"href":"https:\/\/chinosaur.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20835\/revisions\/20837"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinosaur.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinosaur.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinosaur.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinosaur.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}