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the extinct infra-order of the Sauropods and the massive surviving infra-order of the Theropods.
Dinosaurs were no special animals that existed during a scary era, they’re like all other creatures as they found themselves with features that gave them an upper hand in surviving for millions of years. Reptiles and mammals are the most efficient animals with dinosaurs, felines and the great apes being the most efficient survivors and apex predators that we know of. In fact, dinosaurs dominated the Earth even after their supposed extinction.
If we look at the massive diversity in dinosaurs we could see how complex it is to define one through morphology. Their phylogeny is one of the most impressive yet, considering the fact that there’s a lot of families and species that existed in different periods, at different times. A lot of dinosaurs lived millions of years apart and in different places. One of the biggest misconceptions one could have on dinosaurs is that they all lived in one place at the same time and this is completely false as they were spread all over the actively moving Pangaea supercontinent through millions of years which means most of the famous dinosaurs that we know of would’ve never met each other.
of the mammals.
The clade of Dinosauria is one of the most interesting topics of discussion and it has been so since the beginning of the 20th century, being part of the scientific world as well as the entertainment world.
Hollywood has created a certain mainstream image of dinosaurs that was inspired by old scientific views or just plain lies made to add a taste of horror to movies. Besides that general culture, religion, toy businesses, old disproven theories and fake news all influenced the changes made to dinosaurs.
Dinosauria means fearfully great lizard, it's a superorder by itself and a close relative to Pterosauria and Crocodylia. Not every big creature that lived a long time ago was a dinosaur!
Through the years, palaeontologists studied fossils and the more fossils were studied, the more science got forward the more the Dinosauria group was modified until we reached, in 2019, 2 orders: the extinct Ornithischia and the massive order of the Saurischia that includes 2 infra-orders:
illions of years ago, during the Mesozoic period, giant reptiles dominated the planet but at some point they just lost that total domination with the rise
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