The Mesozoic, also known as the “Age of Dinosaurs,” is the time period from 251 million years ago until 65 million years ago. According to the display at the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology:
“The first birds, mammal, and turtles all evolved at this time. The earth’s surface transformed from a single giant continent to the general configuration that we see today. But, perhaps most famous are the dinosaurs—which originated around 230 million years ago and disappeared without a trace (except for birds) 65 million years ago. Only the rock record, with its fossils, provides evidence of this life of the past.”
Richard Dawkins, the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, in his collection of essays entitled A Devil’s Chaplain, writes:
“Modern birds are descended from dinosaurs (or at least from ancestors we would now happily call dinosaurs if only they had gone extinct as decent dinosaurs should).”
Shown below are the Mesozoic displays in the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology on the campus of the The Webb Schools, a private residential high school, in Claremont, California.
According to the Museum display:
“The museum’s important finds in the Kaiparowits Formation in southern Utah, such as this duck-billed dinosaur, have all been discovered by students, staff, and volunteers associated with The Webb Schools.”
According to the Museum display:
“Centrosaurus was a close cousin of Triceratops, distinguished mainly by the shape of the facial horns and boney neck frill. Scientists are still debating the purpose of the odd skulls—were the horns and frills for showing off, fighting with another Centrosaurus, defense from predators, or a combination of all these?”
According to the Museum display:
“Although dinosaurs ruled the land during the Mesozoic, the oceans were also teeming with life. After evolving on land, many reptiles returned to the water and became quite successful there.”
According to the Museum display:
“During the Mesozoic, a number of flying reptiles shared the world with dinosaurs. These animals, called pterosaurs, are cousins of dinosaurs but are not actually dinosaurs themselves. Pterosaurs came in a variety of sizes, from sparrow-sized to the size of a small airplane. Instead of feathers, pterosaurs had a leathery membrane that formed the body of the wing, similar to bats.”
According to the Museum display:
“Like birds, crocodiles, turtles, and many lizards and snakes, dinosaurs reproduced by laying eggs. Discovery of eggs in nests along with the parent dinosaur’s skeleton indicates that some dinosaurs may have cared for their eggs until they hatched (by incubating the eggs and guarding the nest.)”