The Jurassic

When: 206 to 144 million years ago.

Animals: Reptiles dominate land, sea and air. Dinosaurs - like the Oxford forms Eustreptospondylus and Cetiosaurus - are common; pterosaurs fly in the skies above; ichthyosaurs and other marine reptiles swim in the oceans. Echinoderms (sea lilies and star fish) and molluscs - like ammonites and belemnites - are common invertebrates in the oceans.
Plants: Forests of conifers (trees like pine trees) grew on the land.

Firsts: Flowers may have bloomed for the first time. Bony fish similar to most of those we see today, swim in the oceans, and Archaeopteryx and the first true birds appear.
Lasts: Most groups lived through the Jurassic into the Cretaceous.

Notes: Mammals were small and were insignificant compared with the dominant reptiles.

Identify the fossils on this page - click on the pictures to see if you are right!
Remember, some of the fossils are actually much bigger than the pictures shown here.

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