Dinosaurs dominate

After the End Triassic extinction, dinosaurs become the dominant terrestrial animals. They fill the gaps left in the ecospaces for large herbivores, and later also become the dominant predatory animals. A branch of these predatory dinosaurs gave rise to birds!

I am particularly interested in this early radiation of birds and, in recent years, there have been fascinating fossils of feathered dinosaurs and four-winged dinosaurs being recovered from China that make the story so exciting. Two years ago I was involved in the naming and description of Changyuraptor, which is one of the largest four-winged dinosaurs known. I have provided further readings below about this area of research if you want to find out more, although they are quite detailed so you just want to read the abstract (summary).

It is also quite astounding to realise that mammals co-existed for over 165 million years with dinosaurs! During all this time they were small, rat-sized creatures who survived by being inconspicuous.

In the next video, I have asked my PhD student, Emil Krupandan, to chat with us about his work on the early long-necked dinosaurs from Southern Africa.