570 vanished lives

05Mesozoic

A deep skull, bone-crushing bite and keen senses made it one of the last giant theropods.

06Mesozoic

Triceratops ate plants, clipping vegetation with its beak and slicing it with dental batteries. Fossils reveal feeding mechanics more clearly than a precise plant menu.

07Mesozoic

Tall back plates and a four-spiked tail made this low-browsing herbivore unmistakable.

08Mesozoic

This turkey-sized feathered predator carried a raised sickle claw on each foot.

09Mesozoic

A sail-backed predator with dense bones and a paddle-like tail, adapted to life around water.

10Mesozoic

Body armor and a heavy tail club turned a plant-eater into a walking fortress.

11Mesozoic

Its long hollow crest may have carried low calls across forests and floodplains.

40Mesozoic

A lightweight skull and serrated teeth equipped this large predator for repeated slashing bites.

41Mesozoic

Long forelimbs lifted its shoulders and neck toward the Jurassic canopy.

42Mesozoic

A whip-like tail balanced an extremely long neck on this lightly built giant.

43Mesozoic

Brow horns, a deep skull and extremely reduced arms marked this fast abelisaurid.

44Mesozoic

A giant narrow-skulled theropod shared its world with immense sauropods.

45Mesozoic

A stiff tail, grasping hands and enlarged foot claw made an agile feathered hunter.

46Mesozoic

The supposed egg thief was found above a nest that probably contained its own young.

47Mesozoic

Meter-long hand claws belonged to a tall, feathered, pot-bellied herbivore.

48Mesozoic

A thick dome of bone crowned the skull of this two-legged herbivore.

49Mesozoic

A conical thumb spike and batteries of chewing teeth equipped this adaptable herbivore.

50Mesozoic

Protoceratops was a small, beaked ceratopsian from Late Cretaceous Mongolia. Its neck frill and four-legged body distinguish it from its predator Velociraptor.

51Mesozoic

Coelophysis was a slender, two-legged theropod from the Late Triassic. Many skeletons occur together at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico.

52Mesozoic

Plateosaurus was a Late Triassic sauropodomorph from central Europe. It combined a long neck with grasping hands and strongly developed hind limbs.

53Mesozoic

Dilophosaurus wetherilli was a large Early Jurassic predator from northern Arizona. Two thin crests on its skull gave it its name.

54Mesozoic

Microraptor was a small feathered theropod from Early Cretaceous China. Long feathers on both forelimbs and hind limbs created several aerodynamic surfaces.

55Mesozoic

Yi qi was a small Jurassic theropod with feathers and preserved traces of a wing membrane. A rod-like element extending from the wrist made its wing unlike a modern bird's.

85Mesozoic

One of the earliest large dinosaurs was a lightly built two-legged predator.