Jurassic Animals, Dinosaurs & Fossils

229Mesozoic

Plates covered the front body while long paired spikes armed the hips and tail, concentrating defense behind it.

230Mesozoic

Nineteen elongated neck vertebrae placed nearly half the body's length in the neck, lightened internally by air spaces.

237Mesozoic

Four long flippers flew through water while a long flexible neck carried the small head toward prey.

240Mesozoic

Huge bony eye rings supported vision under pressure and may have helped track soft prey in dim water.

271Mesozoic

A nasal horn, brow ridges and small midline osteoderms made this predator unmistakable.

272Mesozoic

A huge skull and unusually powerful three-fingered arms marked one of the largest megalosaurids.

273Mesozoic

The first formally named non-avian dinosaur later became a wastebasket for unrelated theropod bones.

281Mesozoic

Two distinct tooth shapes gave this early pterosaur its name.

286Mesozoic

Flippers, a downturned tail fin and reduced armor transformed a crocodile relative into a pelagic swimmer.

287Mesozoic

A skull nearly two meters long and huge teeth formed an apex-predator bite apparatus.

332Mesozoic

Four long tail feathers displayed rather than powering flight.

333Mesozoic

A long tail and advanced skull combine features once separated between pterosaur groups.

349Mesozoic

Four net-veined leaflets belonged to a seed fern rather than a true fern.

356Mesozoic

The adult tail was gone, but the trunk remained more primitive than in modern frogs.

357Mesozoic

A broad head, short trunk and long tail show the salamander plan already well established.

370Mesozoic

A giant temnospondyl still occupied river ambush niches in the dinosaur era.

374Mesozoic

It had a caecilian-like body but still retained four tiny legs.

387Mesozoic

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

417Mesozoic

Pink calcified masses were long assigned to red algae, but their identity is being reassessed.

424Mesozoic

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

427Mesozoic

Once imagined as a parasite, it was later shown to have an aquatic juvenile stage.

435Mesozoic

Rare soft tissues restore the ink sac, fins and ten hooked arms around an internal shell.

440Mesozoic

Dorsal fin spines and two tooth shapes handled fish and hard-shelled prey.

456Mesozoic

Scales, simple filaments and branching feather-like structures covered one small herbivore.