Learn-about book · Dinosaurs & space

Before the Dinosaurs

A walk through the six chapters of the Paleozoic

By: Aurora Poppyseed12 pagesabout 4 min to read

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Also in: Pred dinozavri (Slovenian) · Pred dinosaurami (Slovak)

Before the Dinosaurs, illustration for page 1 — A World Before Dinosaurs
Long before the first dinosaur, Earth had another great age: the Paleozoic. It began 539 million years ago and lasted 287 million years.
It has six chapters, in order: Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian.
For most of that time, nearly everything alive lived in the sea.
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Before the Dinosaurs, illustration for page 2 — The Sea Wakes Up
In the Cambrian, the sea filled with shells, legs and the first real eyes.
The great hunter was Anomalocaris, about as long as your arm, with two spiny grabbing arms in front of its mouth.
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Before the Dinosaurs, illustration for page 3 — Twenty Thousand Kinds
Trilobites crawled the sea floor through all six chapters — about 270 million years. Scientists have named more than 20,000 different kinds.
Their eyes were made of stone: hundreds of tiny crystal lenses in each one.
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Before the Dinosaurs, illustration for page 4 — Green Comes Ashore
For billions of years the land was bare rock. Then, by the Silurian, low moss-like plants crept out of the water.
The first plant with a proper stem was Cooksonia — shorter than your finger, with a tiny knob on top full of spores.
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Before the Dinosaurs, illustration for page 5 — Sea Scorpions
Sea scorpions ruled the shallows through the Silurian and into the Devonian. The largest, Jaekelopterus, grew about 2.5 metres long — longer than a bed.
It is the biggest arthropod, the biggest relative of crabs and insects, that ever lived.
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Before the Dinosaurs, illustration for page 6 — The Age of Fishes
The Devonian sea belonged to fish. Dunkleosteus was as long as a car and wore bony armour on its head.
It had no teeth at all. Its jaw bones sharpened themselves into blades every time it bit.
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Before the Dinosaurs, illustration for page 7 — Fins with Elbows
About 375 million years ago, late in the Devonian, a flat-headed fish called Tiktaalik lived in warm, weedy shallows.
Inside its front fins were a shoulder, an elbow and a wrist. It could prop itself up. Bones like these are in your arm.
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Before the Dinosaurs, illustration for page 8 — The First Forests
Then plants learned to grow wood. Late in the Devonian, Archaeopteris trees rose about 30 metres — as tall as a ten-storey building.
Their roots cracked the rock into the world's first deep soil.
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Before the Dinosaurs, illustration for page 9 — Giants in the Swamp
In the Carboniferous coal swamps the air held far more oxygen than today, and small animals grew huge.
Meganeura, a dragonfly relative, had wings as wide as your outstretched arms. Arthropleura, a millipede, was 2.5 metres long.
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Before the Dinosaurs, illustration for page 10 — Not a Dinosaur
Dimetrodon walked in the Permian, 290 million years ago, long before any dinosaur.
The tall sail on its back was skin stretched over bones. And it is a closer relative of ours than of any dinosaur.
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Before the Dinosaurs, illustration for page 11 — The Great Dying
The Permian ended 252 million years ago, and the Paleozoic with it. Volcanoes in Siberia poured out lava for thousands of years and changed the air and the sea.
About nine out of ten kinds of sea animals disappeared. Life started again from the rest.
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Before the Dinosaurs, illustration for page 12 — It Never Really Left
The coal in the ground is those swamp forests, pressed flat for 300 million years.
Horsetails and ferns still grow by streams. And in some grey stones you can find a trilobite, waiting.
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The End

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