Footprint Fossils Offer Earliest Evidence of Dinosaurs’ Ancestors

[Elmore Furth]

The earliest evidence of dinosaurs are footprints dating back 246 million years made by two-legged dinosaurs called Sphingopus — the oldest evidence of bipedal dinosaurs. A mass extinction event, the Great Dying, occurred 251.4 million years ago, and killed off the crocodilians so that the dinosaurs could dominate.

Mammalian ancestors at this extinction were therocephalians which gave rise to cynodonts.

By KENNETH CHANG
Published: October 6, 2010

The earliest known relatives of dinosaurs were the size of a house cat, walked on four legs and left footprints in the quarries in Poland.

The tracks, described in a report published Wednesday by the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, push back the first appearance of this dinosaur lineage to about 250 million years ago.

The findings indicate that dinosaurs, which died out in a meteor impact 65 million years ago, originally arose to fill ecological niches opened by an earlier, even greater mass extinction.

Nonetheless, they were all rare. Only 2 percent to 3 percent of the footprints at the sites were left by the dinosaur cousins, which were far outnumbered by lizards, amphibians and crocodilian reptiles. Only after another extinction 200 million years ago, which largely cleared out the crocodilians, did the age of dinosaurs begin.


Footprint Fossils Offer Earliest Evidence of Dinosaurs’ Ancestors

[meow mix]

1. authentic demon footprints... proof of the bible

:evilgrin: