Daily Dino Fact: The Archosaurs make their move
Friday, January 22nd, 2010
Lagosuchus
Q: From which species did dinosaurs evolve? - Chipmunk
A: Another great question. As you can probably assume, dinosaurs didn’t just appear out of nowhere. Dinosaurs didn’t explode until after the Permian/Triassic extinction event that was actually more devastating to life on Earth than the extinction event that killed all of the dinosaurs.
Before the Permian extinction, synapsids were the dominant land dwelling creatures on Earth. Synapsids were mammals of the Paleozoic and any other creature closely related. This group included the famed Dimetrodon, the sail-backed lizard lookin’ thing we all know and love.
You know... this guy
Anyway, some mysterious event happened and killed more than 90% of life on Earth. This was the end of the Permian and the transition into the Triassic. This paved the way for the archosaur takeover in the Triassic. Archosaurs were diapsids, this group is represented in modern day by birds and crocodiles. Some scientists believe that Lagosuchus (pictured at top) is the archosaur that survived the extinction and was the first ancestor that the dinosaurs would have spawned from.
-Rex