Triassic Animals & Early Dinosaurs

19Paleozoic

A beaked, tusked survivor became extraordinarily common after Earth’s greatest mass extinction.

51Mesozoic

A slender, hollow-boned hunter was among the early successful dinosaurs.

52Mesozoic

This early long-necked herbivore could rear upright but mainly walked on two legs.

85Mesozoic

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

89Mesozoic

A long-necked coastal reptile paddled through shallow Triassic seas.

139Mesozoic

This roughly fifteen-meter ichthyosaur had a long narrow snout and four flippers.

170Mesozoic

Thirteen extremely elongated vertebrae formed a neck as long as half the body, while the skull snapped at fish and cephalopods.

171Mesozoic

A lightly built one-meter animal ran on two legs with both sharp and leaf-shaped teeth in its jaws.

221Mesozoic

This lightly built two-meter hunter represents an early branch from the first dinosaur diversification.

266Mesozoic

A whiskered snout, differentiated teeth and burrowing life approach the mammalian body plan.

267Mesozoic

A dog-like snout, slicing cheek teeth and upright hind limbs made it a major cynodont predator.

268Mesozoic

A deep skull, serrated teeth and powerful hind limbs placed it atop food webs before dinosaur dominance.

269Mesozoic

Two huge backward-curving shoulder spikes reinforced rows of protective armor.

270Mesozoic

Paired forward-curving brow horns occur only in some individuals, suggesting maturity or sexual display.

289Mesozoic

Only a few million years after the great extinction, ichthyosaurs had already reached whale-like scale.

323Mesozoic

A shovel-flat skull may have opened by lifting the upper jaw.

324Mesozoic

A broad flat head occupied nearly the full width of its front body.

326Mesozoic

A turtle-like shell protected a placodont with a broad filtering or scraping mouth.

327Mesozoic

Chisel incisors and crushing palatal teeth formed a shell-opening toolkit.

328Mesozoic

A hammer-shaped snout scraped algae before needle teeth filtered the fragments.

350Mesozoic

Silica replaced fallen trunks to create today's multicolored petrified forest.

353Mesozoic

Two lower-jaw tusks passed through openings in the palate when the mouth closed.

354Mesozoic

It had a broad head and shortened trunk but lacked the full jumping machinery of modern frogs.

369Mesozoic

Its semicircular skull was extraordinarily broad and flat.