Latest Crurotarsi Stories

A scientific team led by Brown University has learned how dinosaurs became rulers of Earth more than 200 million years ago. Widespread volcanism and a spike in atmospheric carbon dioxide wiped out half of all plant species, and extinguished early crocodile relatives that had competed with the earliest dinosaurs. Results appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.A shade more than 200 million years ago, the Earth looked far different than it does today. Most land on the...

By the skin of their teeth 200 million years ago, dinosaurs defeated a fierce group of beasts competing for the right to rule the Earth, said scientists Tuesday.Dinosaurs emerged 230 million years ago, in the Triassic Period, and battled for almost 30 million years with a faction of vicious reptiles called crurotarsans, relatives of contemporary crocodiles that developed into gargantuan sizes and resembled dinosaurs.For awhile, most scientists supposed dinosaurs were basically more advanced...