Jurassic Era Essay

The jurassic era approximately 199.6 to 145.5 million years ago full of plant eating dinosaurs roaming the Earth, oceans full of fish, and lush ferns like cycads and bennettitales. Dinosaurs, birds, plants, seas, forests of ferns, and hot climates… This was the Jurassic.
At the start of the era the break apart of pangea occurred and continued new oceans occurred and mountains formed pushing sea levels higher onto the continents. All of this water changed this hot and dry climate into something with a humid and subtropical vibe. Deserts slowly took on the green color while cycads (similar to palm trees) were in large quantities. Back on land dinosaurs were making their mark in some way. The brachiosaurus a plant a herbivore stood up to be around fifty-two feet

tall and around eighty feet long, and weighed over eighty tons. The diplodocus was another dinosaur that was around ninety feet long… These dinosaurs size may have protected them from many carnivores like the allosaurus. The name jurassic comes from the famous movies Jurassic Park although most of the dinosaurs in the movies weren't known to exist until after the Jurassic era was over. The largest land animals of all time existed in this time period. Some of the largest ones were the sauropods and the diplodocus. There is much more of this time to explore though for example plant life during the jurassic, by the beginning of the jurassic plant life had evolved… Plant life went from ferns (which were present) but gymnosperms dominated the terrestrial ecosystem. The gymnosperms wiped out most of the plant life itself. In the jurassic era there was three types of animals omnivores, carnivores, and herbivores...Now into further explanation, a omnivore is an animal that eats both plants and meat. A carnivore is an animal that only eats meats, a herbivore is a animal that only eats plants. As steven spielberg's 1993 film “jurassic park” asserts, reptiles were the dominant animal life forms during the jurassic era.

Reptiles had overcome the evolutionary hurdles of support and reproduction and reproduction that limited the amphibians. Reptiles had strong ossified muscular systems supported by advanced muscular systems for body support and locomotion. Some of the largest animals ever to roam the earth where dinosaurs of the jurassic period. Reptiles were also capable of laying animatonic eggs, which kept the developing young moist and nourished during gestation. This allowed for the first fully terrestrial animal life cycles. Sauropods, the “lizard hipped” dinosaurs, were herbivorous quadrupeds with long necks balanced by heavy tails. Many, such as the Brachiosaurus, were huge. Some genera obtained lengths greater than 100 feet and 100 tons, making them the largest land animals to walk on the earth. Their skulls were relatively small, with nostrils carried highly beside their eyes. Such small skulls meant that they had very small brains as well. Despite the small brains, this group was very successful during the jurassic period and had a wide geographic distribution. Sauropod fossils have been found on every continent except Antarctica.Other well known dinosaurs of the jurassic era include

the plated Stegosaurus and the flying Pterosaurs. Carnosaurs means “meat eating dinosaurs.” With such large herbivorous prey animals, it makes sense that large predators were also common carnosaurs in North America; numerous intact skeletons have been found in fossil beds…