What Was Earth Like Before the Dinosaurs?

What Was Earth Like Before the Dinosaurs?

Millions of years in the past, our planet exhibited a drastically distinct appearance. The continents were united into a single massive landmass, pulsating with a vibrant array of captivating and fearsome life forms. When we envision prehistoric eras, visions of jungle-rampaging T-Rexes with their razor-sharp teeth often come to mind. However, even preceding the reign of dinosaurs, there were other colossal creatures that ruled the Earth. Welcome to the Permian period, an epic era that commenced 300 million years ago. During this epoch, our planet boasted a supercontinent called Pangea, encircled by a vast world ocean known as Panthalassa. The Permian period unfolded following an ice age, characterized by considerably cooler temperatures than what we experience today.

then during early Permian days Earth

warmed to a lush environment with a

diversity of plants and a rapid

evolution of insect and animal life

only as you probably know everything is

Ever Changing on our Blue Marble

over the next 50 million years Earth

kept growing hotter and drier eventually

the most deadly event in the history of

our planet wiped out nearly everything

that ever lived here

scientists call this event the great

dying and it was the most catastrophic

mass extinction event the Earth has ever

seen and the Earth has seen five of them

but before we get to all this Doom and

Gloom let me take you on an Epic Journey

Back in Time

here in the Permian period some of the

most incredible species that roamed our

young Planet are about to emerge

if you could time travel nearly 300

million years into the past you'd land

smack dab in the middle of the

supercontinent Pangea

Earth's smaller continents would have

just finished colliding with each other

to form this enormous land mass taking

up one third of the planet's surface

there was likely less oxygen in the air

than there is now but it still might be

able to breathe

oh and bring a jacket because it would

likely be chilly with some areas

averaging no more than a Brisk four

degrees Celsius

but don't worry things will soon start

heating up

by the end of the early Permian the Ice

Age was on its way out and Pangea was

becoming a lush world

plants and animals started to thrive

this was a volcanic World violent

eruptions changed the climate shaped the

landscape and paved the way for

evolution

when giant swamp forests began drying

out plant life had to adapt and so

290 million years ago Earth saw the very

first seed bearing plants called

gymnosperms

these plants carried seeds on their

cones and they spread across the

supercondent like wildfire

the ancient evergreen forest of the

early Permian was hiding something

familiar

just like today you could find cicadas

and beetles piercing and sucking on the

plants and the cutest of them all

cockroaches

only these weren't the Cockroaches you

know today

these prehistoric Vermin were gigantic

the size of birds

but despite their size cockroaches never

ruled prehistoric land and that's good

news am I right

no something much more fascinating was

roaming Pangea the now extinct ancestor

of primitive mammals Dimetrodon

this animal was as fascinating as it was

terrifying

encountering a dimetrodon would be quite

a sight to behold

this ancient lizard grew to five meters

long and weighed 225 kilograms

it had a large sail running down its

spine

scientists think this sale helped the

reptile regulate its body temperature

soaking up warmth during the daytime and

dissipating excess heat during the

cooler nights

it would walk toward you like a

crocodile and act like a total Menace

dimetrodon was an apex predator of its

time

watch out for a mix of sharp and flat

teeth that would slice you open and

grind you up

in the middle Permian period other

mammal-like reptiles took over the

planet the rap SIDS they had strong jaws

with sharp teeth and a somewhat upright

stance thanks to their legs being

situated underneath their bodies

the rapid reptiles varied from the five

meter long likely omnivorous

deuterasaurus to the five times smaller

meat-eating lycanops

you could beat plenty more thoraxids if

you stuck around for another 20 million

years

during the middle Permian period Earth

kept getting hotter the average global

temperature on Pangea grew to about 25

degrees Celsius and volcanoes were

spitting greenhouse gases out into the

atmosphere

due to the changing climate sea levels

were shifting but marine life found ways

to thrive

if you were to take a dip in the

prehistoric super ocean you'd be

swimming alongside ancient sharks and

bony primitive fish

many more complex marine species came

and went as the environment kept

changing

in the late Permian period you could

have a friendly encounter with another

reptile listrosaurus

these looked like a cross between a

lizard and a pig but unlike all the

scary prehistoric monsters out there

listrosaurus was a herbivore it was just

one meter long and had powerful front

legs for burrowing

soon another cute mammal-like lizard

evolved the synodont

the synodont looked like a giant rodent

it was about one meter long had whiskers

and fed on small animals and insects

now during this time something bad was

brewing in the air

a large amount of volcanic activity was

displacing oxygen from the atmosphere

scientists think there was as little as

10 percent oxygen in the air compare

that to 21 today

you'd have a hard time breathing in that

environment

and the temperature kept rising and

Rising

with an average temperature of about 28

degrees Celsius this Lush prehistoric

world was turning into an oven

all good things must come to an end and

sadly this period came to a particularly

brutal one

about 252 million years ago about 90

percent of all plant and animal life was

wiped out

this tragic moment is called the Great

dying and it was Earth's most

devastating mass extinction event

scientists still debate what caused this

catastrophic Extinction most theories

suggest it was the result of explosive

volcanic activity

as huge volcanic eruptions swept the

continent massive amounts of Ash were

Unleashed into the atmosphere

so much Ash that it blocked out most if

not all of the incoming sunlight and

with no sunlight global temperatures

dropped suddenly

plants couldn't perform their

photosynthetic processes and died off

and without plants the very basis of

their food chain animals soon followed

things got worse before they got better

because of all the carbon dioxide

emitted during the volcanic eruptions

global temperatures rose again and not

just to where they were but higher much

higher

and this caused the super ocean to lose

most of its oxygen and unable to breathe

a majority of the Permian sea animals

perished

eventually over 95 percent of marine

species and more than 70 percent of land

animals became extinct

this mass extinction event could make

you sad enough to want to bring back all

the animals that have ever gone away

dinosaurs too

but that's a story for another

what if