Dinosaurs timeline
dinosaur , (clade Dinosauria), the common name given to a group of reptiles , often very large, that first appeared roughly 245 million years ago (near the beginning of the Middle Triassic Epoch) and thrived worldwide for nearly 180 million years. Most died out by the end of the Cretaceous Period , about 66 million years ago, but many lines of evidence now show that one lineage evolved into birds about 155 million years ago. The name dinosaur comes from the Greek words deinos (“terrible” or “fearfully great”) and sauros (“reptile” or “lizard”). The English anatomist Richard Owen proposed the formal term Dinosauria in 1842 to include three giant extinct animals ( Megalosaurus , Iguanodon , and Hylaeosaurus ) represented by large fossilized bones that had been unearthed at several locations in southern England during the earl...