The Worst Period To Time Travel To...

let's say for one second that a mad scientist has created a time machine and is forcing you to pick a random period to travel to during the mesic a lot of your possible options would definitely lead to an unfortunate ending but whatever you do you really really really should not pick 150 million years ago as this was an age where instant death was around nearly every corner dinosaurs per usual for the mesic ruled on land at the time but even for dinosaur standards the ones that existed back then were especially terrifying with certain paleontologists considering this time period to be a golden age for supersized sods and meat-loving therapods unfortunately even if you could snap your fingers and make the dinosaurs go away 150 million years ago would still be a lot of nope with the land oceans and skies harboring a lot of secrets that were let's just say unfriendly to life Welcome to the late Jurassic during this time not even a map would do you much good as earth's land masses were fairly unrecognizable compared current versions with North America arguably being the most like its current self having at least maintained a similar shape familiarity ends here though as to the South lays a giant mass of merged continents that form together what some consider to have been the last supercontinent gondwana this ancient land mass was composed of South America the Arabian Peninsula India Antarctica and Australia creating the largest continent of the late Jurassic which covered almost one sixth of the Earth's entire surface and from space would have looked like a mega blob of land surprisingly not even gondwana was the most foreign looking continent at the time with that title going into laasia a giant continent within its own right that was made up of present day Europe Greenland and parts of Asia it unlike the rest of the Earth was absolutely covered by expansive Waters that split and isolated much of the land resulting in the countries we know of today being smaller and composed of numerous Islands Europe in particular was an island paradise that bore nearly no resemblance to the present its location was quite different too being closer to North America than it is today meanwhile China was right next to Iran and turkey yet extremely far away from India evidently the geography was rather confusing to say the least thankfully however late Jurassic oceanography wasn't since only two major bodies of water existed the Pacific Ocean and the teus ocean the teus was already an ancient ocean at the time having existed for over 100 million years it covered the Eastern Hemisphere and had recently experienced significant tectonic activity which had raised it up resulting in the higher sea levels that submerged large parts of laasia despite getting this tectonic boost it was still smaller than the younger yet still 50 milliony old Pacific Ocean which now dominated the entire Western Hemisphere and would continue to expand as time passed the late Jurassic also saw the emergence of of yet another body of water we all know of the Atlantic Ocean although at the time it resembled a sea more than anything else being nearly entirely surrounded by land the Atlantic's temperatures were also unlike they are today being remarkably warmer and this was actually a trend seen worldwide with seawater averaging 32. 1 de C or 90° F making it 25% hotter than the current average even in the deepest parts of the Pacific temperatures were still considerably warmer hovering around 17° C or 63° F akin to tap water this heighten temperature is often attributed to the increased tectonic activity of the time which would have led to very active volcanoes thus spewing massive amounts of CO2 into the water currently paleontologists are actually aware of a few of these now extinct volcanoes one of which is Earth's largest known volcano TAMU masif this absolute unit is located 1,600 km or 990 Mi east of Japan and covers more seafloor than the state of California while standing almost twice as tall as Mount St Helens during its active life TAMU masif would have made the oceans more acidic and heated up the atmosphere leading to warmer conditions on land as well in fact 150 million years ago was most likely just about the warmest period in the entire Jurassic with an average daily temperature of 20° C or 68° F nearly 15% warmer than today with this heat earth was experiencing climactic conditions that it hadn't for nearly 50 million years with both the northern and southern hemisphere witnessing significant amounts of dry biomes including deserts and savanas which could be quite harsh on animals considering that most also had distinct dry seasons where severe droughts were not unheard of towards the equator things got a little less Cutthroat as drier ecosystems gave way to Lush expanse of tropical forests that covered the vast majority of North Africa however the most toned down conditions were not found there either rather near and within the polar regions since back then they were not brutally cold Tundras but rather temperate biomes similar to modern day Central Europe the polar regions were so much warmer back then that they didn't even have ice sheets or glaciers and as a result life was absolutely plentiful and even in the harsher Aid climates closer to the Equator life still found a way with the richest known formations actually hailing from these brutal areas dinosaurs in particular thrived and were enjoying a level of diversification never yet seen of all the groups lumbering around theropods sods neor aisans and armored dinosaurs were the most established with multiple species from each group often being found within a single ecosystem resulting in a chaoticness rarely seen during the Mesozoic this is perhaps best demonstrated by the Morris information which was an exp expansive North American biosphere that Spann across 13 states and was composed of arid savanas forests and trand so far over 40 dinosaurs are known to have resided there including at least 10 different theropods nearly all of which were big enough to hunt human-sized animals yet unlike the Cretaceous the Morrison's most dominant carnivores were not Tyrannosaurs who had yet to evolve rather alisur the most abundant of them all was the Allosaurus typically dubbed the line of the Jurassic thanks to its striking appearance it was a nearly Unstoppable Predator who sported razor sharp teeth and a blood- inducing slashing bite that allowed it to hunt a wide range of herbivores Studies have suggested that it may have even hunted in packs as well but whatever the case it undeniably dominated the lands accounting for 75% of all carnivore remains with such numbers you'd expect it to be a small yet plentiful creature but no Allosaurus was a giant by current standards with adults weighing an average of 1. 7 tons and measuring 8.

5 M or 28 ft in length this comfortably made it one of the biggest predators around but remarkably even it wasn't the biggest terrestrial predator on Earth with that title going to the Sara fagax which happened to live in North America as well this like the Allosaurus was a member of the allosaur family and could weigh up to 5 tons equivalent to nearly four adult giraffes in addition to classification it was similar to the allosaur Source in many ways both possessing robust arms sharp claws serated teeth and distinct crests but yet differed in the shape of its vertebra and obviously body size alongside these two there were still more carnivores who called the Morrison formation home with the most well-known ones including the catosaurus torvosaurus and the Mysterious EDM marar Rex both of the latter were megalosaur and were also again gigantic being more comparable to the SAR of fagax than other carnivores with large specimens of torvosaurus weighing around 4 tons while the EDM marker Rex could have weighed just as much as the Soro fagax on the other hand catosaurus while ferocious was a large step down from the giant carnivores mentioned with large adults being similar in weight to polar bears so obviously still not small by any means regardless many still consider it to be the underdog of the Jurassic overlooking its agility and deadly bite that made it a highly successful predator and most also forget the giant size was the exception not the rule since most Morrison Predators were medium-sized like the catosaurus or even smaller for example tradds and early primitive relatives of Tyrannosaurs made up the bulk of these smaller carnivores who seldomly stood above a human's waist and stature this may make you wonder how such small carnivore stood a chance in an ecosystem ruled by behemoths and the answer is simple niching instead of contesting and competing with each other predator s would just occupy different ecological niches which is exemplified by catosaurus and Allosaurus with the former being found near bodies of water whereas the Allosaurus Preferred Open terrestrial spaces this helped keep the peace in a therapod rich environment but peace was not always possible as North America and much of the Earth were subjected to severe droughts that drove nearly all to violence with fossilized remains indicating extreme amounts of cannibalism therapod un theropod violence and Scavenging it was during these moments that being smaller was an advantage because it meant much less calories were needed to survive and this of course apply to small herbivores as well which were mainly made up of neor aisans more than five kinds are known from 150 million years ago but a couple of the more common ones would have been the cougar sized dryosaurus and the larger camptosaurus that weighed about half a ton despite their size differences both had similar diets composed of ground level plants and the two also tragically shared a lack of defenses with speed being their only real plan a plan B and plan C for that matter this problem however was not at all common for other herbivores as many became ruthless themselves in order to ward off therapods like the iconic stegosaurus who happened to also be the largest non-sar pod you could find with exceptional adults reaching 9 M or 30 ft in length and weighing 5. 5 tons not to mention it also had a thamiz which while may sound funny would have felt terrible for potential Predators as this was the large bony spikes attached to the end of its tail turning it into a potent weapon individuals could use to pierce the bone of attacking carnivores as evidence in fossils by one unlucky Allosaurus and stegosaurus wasn't the only herbivore with a good therapod turn in these lands as fresh on the scene was my muraa one of the oldest known in kosur it was considerably smaller than its later relatives with adults only weighing 562 kg or 1,239 lbs yet it did have the trademarked heavy armor that made in kosur famous with osteoderms spreading across the entirety of its upper body these osteoderms varied in size and sometimes had sharpened edges particularly when located near vulnerable spots sadly though armor was noizer and numerous remains of this en kosur were found with signs of ration by theropods such a fate presumably extended to other existing armored dinosaurs as well which included another in kosur the gargoyleosaurus and the stegosaur alasa surus at this point you may be tired of hearing about so many dinosaurs but to really drive home the fact that this was one of their Golden Ages you cannot forget about the most abundant dinosaurs of them all sods in fact 150 million years ago may have been the Apex period for this group as they were typically the most common dinosaurs about with camarasaurus holding the title The most abundant animal in the Western Hemisphere but it was by no means alone and a mix of different sarod families ran rampant with the two key players being the diot kids and the macronarian both of these families were powerhouses with multiple iconic members some of them including household names like Brachiosaurus dioicus supersaurus barosaurus brontosaurus Apatosaurus and the honorable mention maraun asaurus which belonged to neither family but was absolutely massive and in reality every sore pot alive then including those unmentioned were pretty massive with the smallest weighing 13 tons while the largest sat around 70 tons naturally with such crazy fauna many have been Amazed by the Morrison since its Discovery and yet incredibly the Morrison wasn't exactly special as much of the world had similar ecosystems were the same group of dinosaurs dominated and in some places even the exact same dinosaurs could be found for instance if you try to escape the Allosaurus catosaurus or torvosaurus by fleeing to Europe you'd still run into them while on the flip side you could also experience some absolutely great sarod sightseeing in gondwana where evidence of brachiosaurus barosaurus and camarasaurus were found and even dinosaurs unique to other land masses still tended to follow the same Trends seen in the Morrison with many having counterparts across the globe for example Tanzania had a Titanic giraffa Titan which played a similar ecological role as Brachiosaurus additionally Tanzania also saw the likes of kentaurus the stegosaur and counterpart and close relative of Stegosaurus in Europe the exact situation is again seen with sods like the Oceano Titan and stegosaurus like the curus peppering the land where gandana in Europe differed how ever was that they had a new kind of therapod family not yet seen in North America or anywhere else for that matter and that is the carodon sord which were partially characterized by high neural spines proportionally long arms and long narrow skulls the oldest and first of them to evolve was the vetero prosauropods strangely in China which wasn't far away from Europe carodon sord weren't found although they had their very own unique apex predator the Ying tuanosaur following the trend this was a monstrous therapod that was nearly as long as the largest torvosaurus and weigh up to 3. 4 tons making it the largest predator in all of Asia from a distance you may mistake it for a unit of an Allosaurus since the two were closely related and shared many similar features but they were not cut from the same cloth a xenosaurus was not an allosaur member rather a metrican theur which in Greek means moderately spined lizards so it's not surprising that this group's defining trait was well moderately sized spines beyond the uniqueness of yangchuanosaurus Asia was again much like rest of the world with the four main groups reigning Supreme and bearing multiple species some of the most well-known that lived at the time included mimisaurus jingshanosaurus dinosaurus and leosa surus and it wasn't just the dinosaurs that would have made your eyes widen as the late Jurassic accommodated a wide range of non- dinosaurs too with the most dominant being crocodilo forms like dinosaurs they came in a variety of sizes and inhabited a diverse range of habitats but were usually on the smaller side comparatively most like the gator sized otus or semi- aquatic hunting down fish amphibians and turtles that dwell near them but a few were actually fully terrestrial and could appear fairly nightmarish as seen with halap who had slender skinny limbs giving it an odd unsettling appearance although you wouldn't have to worry because jipis was a tiny creature that rarely grew taller than a boot and mostly stuck to insects and other small prey the other terrestrial Crocs were quite small too likely a result of living in the shadow of dinosaurs and another group that ran into this sici problem as well was our very own ancestors the mamia form Ms by now they had been around for over 100 million years and were well adapted for a mix of Lifestyles with older fossils showing that some had developed the ability to Glide climb trees and be semi-aquatic their diets were also quite versatile with some specializing in Plants While others nibbled on meat or dabbled in both areas a scene with the omnivorous gimar rodon who may even have scavenged on dinosaurs yet it was still like other mamalia forms which is to say small as on average these guys were no bigger than a shrew making them hard to notice among so many Titans nonetheless there was a group that wasn't exactly giant but were hard to miss and these were the theasaurus the terrasaurs had established control of the Skies roughly 80 million years prior to this point and flew mostly unchallenged interestingly though they weren't very populous as only a few remains from the time are known yet their bones were geologically widespread indicating a successful Conquest across a significant portion of Earth typically late Jurassic terrasaurs seem to have preferred marine and Shoreline habitats where they could fill their stomachs with fish insects shellfish and carryon it's also been hypothesized that the largest theasaurus could have actively hunted certain terrestrial creatures with the biggest terrasaur being lucis this terrasaur lived in Europe and was a leviathan compared to coexisting relatives with an estimated wingspan of 3.