Well, crocodiles share a heritage with dinosaurs as part of a group known as archosaurs (“ruling reptiles”), who date back to the Early Triassic period (250 million years ago). The earliest crocodilian, meanwhile, evolved around 95 million years ago, in the Late Cretaceous period.
Crocodiles relatives are believed to have existed either before dinosaurs or right when dinosaurs first appeared! Crocodile ancestors date back 240 million years to the Triassic period, that's the same era that dinosaurs first began to flourish.
Modern crocodiles and alligators are almost unchanged from their ancient ancestors of the Cretaceous period (about 145–66 million years ago). That means that animals that were almost identical to the ones you can see today existed alongside dinosaurs!
Strangely enough, birds and dinosaurs are each other's closest living relatives. Crocodiles are one of the oldest living animals and lived at the time of dinosaurs.
Plant life consisted mostly of ferns, conifers and small shrubs. Animals included sharks, bony fish, arthropods, amphibians, reptiles and synapsids. The first true mammals would not appear until the next geological period, the Triassic.
For approximately 120 million years—from the Carboniferous to the middle Triassic periods—terrestrial life was dominated by the pelycosaurs, archosaurs, and therapsids (the so-called "mammal-like reptiles") that preceded the dinosaurs.
Mammals: After the extinction, mammals came to dominate the land. An early relative of all primates, including humans, survived the extinction. Snakes: Although a number of snake species died out around 65 million years ago, snakes as a group survived.
Coelacanths, first swam in the ocean about 400 million years ago and were believed to be extinct until one was caught off South Africa in 1938.
Although it can be hard to tell exactly how old some species are and scientists are confident that they still haven't uncovered nearly all the fossils that could be found, most scientists agree that the oldest living species still around today is the horseshoe crab.
Jonathan the tortoise, world's oldest land animal, celebrates his 190th birthday. Jonathan, a Seychelles giant tortoise, pictured when he was still just 185, in St. Helena, a British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic Ocean.
There are two main reasons. First, crocodiles can live for a very long time without food. Second, they lived in places that were the least affected when the asteroid hit Earth.
Australia is home to two species of crocodiles, the Estuarine Crocodile and the Freshwater Crocodile. Both belong to the reptile family Crocodylidae (the 'true crocodiles'), members of the sub-class Archosauria.
Crocodiles are the closest living relatives of the birds, sharing a common ancestor that lived around 240 million years ago and also gave rise to the dinosaurs.
Reptiles, such as crocodiles and lizards, have legs that sprawl out to the side. Their thigh bones are almost parallel to the ground. They walk and run with a side-to-side motion. Dinosaurs, on the other hand, stand with their legs positioned directly under their bodies.
'It was a member of the goniopholididae, which have a similar semi-aquatic lifestyle and a generally similar skull shape and skeleton to modern crocodiles. They're one of the earliest branching lineages in a group called neosuchia, which includes all modern crocodilians and their closest ancestors.
For the first time, scientists have found indisputable evidence that an ancient crocodile ancestor chowed down on a dinosaur.
Estimates of sponge longevity vary quite a bit, but are often in the thousands of years. One study in the journal Aging Research Reviews notes a deep-sea sponge from the species Monorhaphis chuni lived to be 11,000 years old. Yes, a sponge is an animal—and it has a remarkable life-span.
Coelacanth – 410 MYA
The oldest Coelacanth fossils are only 410 million years old, predating dinosaurs, trees, and sharks by a large margin. They were originally considered to have gone extinct 66 million years ago but were found off the coast of South Africa.
The primitive-looking coelacanth (pronounced SEEL-uh-kanth) was thought to have gone extinct with the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
To date, there's only one species that has been called 'biologically immortal': the jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii. These small, transparent animals hang out in oceans around the world and can turn back time by reverting to an earlier stage of their life cycle.
The oldest dog living is Gino Wolf (USA, b. 24 September 2000), who is 22 years 52 days as verified in Los Angeles, California, USA, on 15 November 2022. Gino was adopted by Alex Wolf in Boulder, Colorado, in 2002.
"If dinosaurs didn't go extinct, mammals probably would've remained in the shadows, as they had been for over a hundred million years," says Brusatte. "Humans, then, probably would've never been here."
There are later descriptions of creatures in the Bible that could be referring to dinosaurs. One example is the behemoth of Job 40:15-19. Even in fairly modern history there are reports of creatures which seem to fit the description of dinosaurs.
No! After the dinosaurs died out, nearly 65 million years passed before people appeared on Earth. However, small mammals (including shrew-sized primates) were alive at the time of the dinosaurs.
The first modern humans (i.e. Homo sapiens) appeared around 300,000 years ago, tens of millions of years after the dinosaurs went extinct. The earliest humans are thought to have lived in Africa, before moving out into what is now Europe and Asia, and eventually inhabiting most other parts of the world.