What Did the Earth Look Like Before Dinosaurs?

Millions of years ago, the Earth looked very different. All the continents merged into one, full of life, both beautiful and terrible. When you think of prehistoric times, you might imagine a T-Rex rampaging through the jungle with its razor-sharp teeth, but even before the dinosaurs, other giant creatures ruled the land. Yes, welcome to Perm. This epic began 300 million years ago. At that time, our planet had one supercontinent, Pangea, which was surrounded by a world ocean called Panthalassa. The Permian began at the end of the Ice Age, when temperatures were much colder than today. In the early days of the Permian period, the earth warmed into a lush environment where plants were diverse and insect and animal life developed rapidly. Constantly shifting on our blue marble, the Earth continued to warm and dry over the next 50 million years, and eventually the deadliest event in our planet's history wiped out almost everything that had ever lived here. Scientists call this event the Great Dying, and it was the most catastrophic mass extinction the Earth has ever seen, and the Earth has seen five of them. But before we get into all that doom and gloom, let me take you on an epic journey. Back in time, here in the Permian, some of the most incredible species to ever roam our young planet are emerging. If you could time travel nearly 300 million years into the past, you would land in the middle of the supercontinent Pangea. The smaller continents of the Earth would have simply collided with each other to form this huge land mass, which occupies a third of the surface of the planet. There was probably less oxygen in the air than now, but it could still breathe. And bring a jacket because it will probably be cold, and in some places the average temperature is four degrees. But don't worry; things are heating up. By the end of the Early Permian, the Ice Age had ended, and Pangea had become an abundant world. Plants and animals flourished. Violent global eruptions changed the climate, shaped the landscape, and paved the way for development. When the giant swamp forests began to dry out, plants had to adapt, and so 290 million years ago, the Earth saw the first seed-bearing plants called gymnosperms. These plants carried seeds in their cones, and they spread like wildfire across the continent.

The ancient Permian evergreen forest hid something familiar, as it does today. You could find cicadas and beetles that bore holes and sucked plants, and the most beautiful of them all were cockroaches, but they were not the cockroaches that you know today. These prehistoric pests were gigantic, the size of birds, but despite their size, cockroaches never ruled the prehistoric earth, and that's good news, am I right? No, something much more fascinating roamed Pangea: Dimetrodon, the extinct ancestor of primitive mammals. This animal was both fascinating and terrifying. Encountering a Dimetrodon would be quite a sight. This ancient lizard grew five meters long and weighed 225 kilograms. A large sail ran along its crest. Scientists believe this veil helped the reptile regulate its body temperature by absorbing heat during the day and evaporating excess heat during cooler nights. It would walk towards you like a crocodile and behave as if the perfect menace, Dimetrodon, was the apex animal of its time. Beware of a combination of sharp and flat teeth that will cut and grind you. During the Middle Permian period, other mammal-like reptiles took over the planet. They had strong jaws, sharp teeth, and a slightly upright posture because their legs were under their bodies. The fast reptiles ranged from the five-meter-long, probably omnivorous Deuterasaurus to the carnivorous Lyceans, five times smaller. If you have about 20 million years left, you can breastfeed a lot more. During the mid-Permian period, the Earth continued to warm. The average global temperature of Pangea rose to about 25 degrees Celsius, and volcanoes poured greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Due to climate change, seawater levels fluctuated, but marine life found opportunities to develop. If you bathed in a prehistoric sea, you would be swimming with ancient sharks and bony primitive fish. Many more complex marine species came and went as the environment changed during the Late Permian. You may have a friendly encounter with another reptile, Lystrosaurus. They looked like a cross between a lizard and a pig, but unlike all the scary prehistoric monsters, Lystrosaurus was an herbivore, only a meter long, and had powerful front legs to soon dig up another cute mammal-like lizard. The giant rodent, about one meter long, had a beard and ate small animals and insects. During this time, there was something bad in the air; a lot of volcanic activity expelled oxygen from the atmosphere. Scientists think that there was only 10 percent oxygen in the air compared to today's 21 percent, and it would be difficult to breathe in that. environment, the temperature continued to rise, and the average temperature rose to about 28 degrees Celsius. This abundant prehistoric world was becoming an oven. All good things must come to an end, and unfortunately, this period came to a particularly brutal end about 252 million years ago, when about 90 percent of all plant and animal life was destroyed.

This tragic moment is called the Great Dying, and it was the most devastating mass extinction on Earth. Scientists are still debating what caused this massive extinction, with most theories suggesting that it was caused by an explosive volcanic eruption as huge volcanic eruptions swept across the continent, releasing so much ash into the atmosphere that it blocked most, if not all, volcanic eruptions. incoming sunlight. and without sunlight, global temperatures dropped, plants couldn't carry out their photosynthetic processes and died, and without plants, animals soon followed at the base of their food chain, getting worse before they got better because of all the carbon dioxide released during volcanic eruptions. The temperature of the Earth rose again, and not only to where they were but much higher, and this caused most of the ocean to be deprived of oxygen and unable to breathe. Most Permian animals eventually died by more than 95 percent. marine species and more than 70 percent of land animals became extinct. This mass extinction might make you so sad that you want to bring back all the extinct animals, including the dinosaurs, but that's a story for others.