What are Some Jurassic Animals?
The Jurassic period extended from about 200 to 146 million years ago. The Jurassic period was right smack in the middle of the “Age of Reptiles,” also known as the “Age of Dinosaurs.” In the late Triassic, immediately before the Jurassic, almost all the important dinosaur groups evolved — theropods (which includes all carnivorous dinosaurs), sauropods (long-necked herbivores which grew to absolutely gargantuan sizes during the Jurassic), and assorted herbivores such as Stegosaurus. Other non-dinosaur reptiles also had evolved in the late Triassic, including pliosaurs (marine reptiles) and pterosaurs (large winged reptiles). The Jurassic was immediately before the age of flowering plants, so the landscape was dominated by conifers, cycads, and ferns. Cycads, tropical trees with a stout trunk, experienced their greatest success during the Jurassic period, and even today, many intuitively recognize these plants as “common in the time of the dinosaurs.” Unlike the arid Triassic before it,
