The Cretaceous Period
st
The Cretaceous period, the longe
4-66
period in the Mesozoic Era, was 14
nts
million years ago. Earth’s contine
apart.
had separated and began to drift
meant
The various different continents
nt
that dinosaurs developed in differe
re
ways, and so there were many mo
s the
types of dinosaurs. This period wa
abit
last time the dinosaurs would inh
aur
Earth, and they thrived. No dinos
swam or flew, but the Cretaceous
s
period saw mammals and reptile
ny
become more successful, with ma
urs.
marine reptiles and flying pterosa
What was th
e world like
?
The Cretaceo
us period beg
an with
similar tempe
ratures to tho
se in the
Jurassic perio
d, but within
the first
few million y
ears tempera
tures began
to cool. By th
e end of the p
eriod, the
continents w
ere much mo
re similar
to how they a
re today. Afric
a and
South Americ
a had taken sh
ape, but
India had not
yet collided w
ith Asia
and Australia
, leaving it stil
l a part of
Antarctica. Flo
wering plants
appeared
for the first ti
me!
What lived on Earth in the
Cretaceous period?
The Cretaceous period really was the golden
age of the dinosaur. Hadrosaurs, the cows of
the Cretaceous, all had amazing and varied
crests. They roamed the lands, possibly in
herds, grazing on plants. The ceratopsians
or ‘horned face’ dinosaurs, such as the
Triceratops, could reach up to 33ft in length
when fully grown. There were ankylosaurs,
four legged herbivores covered in thick bony
plates and spikes which were the armoured
tanks of the dinosaur world. There were three
main groups of ankylosaurs, the Nodosaurids,
which had rows of spikes on their bodies, the
Polacanthids, who had spiky bodies and tails
and the Ankylosaurids who had bony clubs on
their tails.
We see the arrival of a ve