Cretaceous Animals, Dinosaurs & Extinction

330Mesozoic

Forward-projecting front teeth may have hooked small slippery prey.

331Mesozoic

A small plant eater combined low armor with an unusually deep jaw.

334Mesozoic

Most of its enormous head crest was soft tissue used as a visual signal.

336Mesozoic

A waterbird close to ducks lived before the non-avian dinosaurs vanished.

351Mesozoic

A broad skull and massive body made it one of the largest known frogs.

352Mesozoic

A giant amphibian still occupied cold rivers where crocodyliforms were uncommon.

380Mesozoic

Its sickle mandibles closed upward against the head instead of sideways.

381Mesozoic

A metal-reinforced head horn and rising jaws formed a specialized clamp.

382Mesozoic

A long forehead horn opposed upward-curving mandibles.

383Mesozoic

An elongated prothorax gave this aculeate relative a neck-like outline.

384Mesozoic

Wingless females combined a wasp waist with enlarged jumping hind legs.

385Mesozoic

A long neck and grasping forelegs converged on the mantis body plan.

386Mesozoic

Short leathery forewings covered folded membranous hindwings.

387Mesozoic

Six extremely long legs may have spread its weight across the water surface.

389Mesozoic

It resembled a giant primitive flea but may not be a direct flea ancestor.

396Mesozoic

Raptorial forelegs and three tail filaments formed a lost mayfly body plan.

398Mesozoic

Pollen on the legs and body records an early pollination relationship.

401Mesozoic

A millimeter-scale cap and gills show agaric mushrooms in the dinosaur era.

402Mesozoic

A slender stem and tiny cap already resembled marasmioid mushrooms.

403Mesozoic

A mineralized cap brings early agaric evidence to the southern continents.

407Mesozoic

Hyphae surrounding a scale insect preserve a tiny Cretaceous association.

408Mesozoic

Simple club-shaped fruiting bodies show non-gilled fungi in Cretaceous forests.

424Mesozoic

Orderly lance-shaped leaves lined stems of a widespread but enigmatic plant.

428Mesozoic

An abdominal light organ pushes beetle bioluminescence into the dinosaur age.