Dinosaurs After the Cretaceous

What happened to the dinosaurs, after the Cretaceous mass extinction? What have humans done with their remains, and what have they showed up in as movie stars?

The Dinosaurs Take Over, Again

The dinosaur reign ended abruptly, about 66 million years ago. However, birds, the only living group of dinosaurs, were the only things in the sky, other than insects. They were kings of the sky, and they evolved to become better fliers. These plucky dinosaurs even evolved to be land-dwelling creatures like ostriches, emus, and moas.

Dinosaurs on Land

Of course, mammals dominated the land during the cenozoic era, and birds fell prey to many of them as they rested. Still, they dominated the skies, as relics of the ancient world dominated by warm-blooded feather-bearing beasts. Some birds, such as emus and ostriches today, or Balaur and dodos in the past, were flightless. The ground-dwellers, however, were not dominating, unlike their non-avian ancestors.

The Attack on South America

South America was dominated by the mammals, as was practically everywhere. However, the birds got fed up of being bossed around. The terror birds evolved, with notable genera being Citipati, Gastornis, and Kelenken. As their name suggests, the average human would probably poop themselves when encountering one of these flightless beasts. Their wings were tiny, but may have been used to balance themselves while running at extremely high speeds. The largest of these, Kelenken, could grow to be up to ten feet long!

They were vicious carnivores, grasping small mammals in their gigantic, sharp beaks, and shaking them so hard that the prey's spine would break. Another way terror birds likely killed their prey was by pinning them to the ground, and bashing their head in, using the beak described earlier. Terror birds were not something you wanted to mess with. For a reason I do not know, the terror bird reign of South America ended, and the mammals were safe once again.

The Retaliation

The mammals were safe, but they wanted to truly insult the birds. Bats took to the sky, with one goal: KILL THE BIRDS. However, as you can see, dinosaurs still control the skies today, and bats are failures.

Incorporation in Our Lives

Now, dinosaurs are very useful to us. The most popular meat in the U.S. is chicken, which comes from Gallus gallus domesticus, meaning "Domesticated chicken chicken." Dodos, back when they were alive, were a delicacy! On Thanksgiving, 2/3 of americans eat turkeys, and many British people have turkey on Christmas. People have parrots and other organic aeroplanes living in their houses, zoos, and farms.