Brain Fuel

Dinosaurs were amazingly successful animals that were dominant for over 130 million years and whose descendants are still with us today as birds. This course will focus on the history of the dinosaurs, beginning with the largest mass extinctions of all time that initiated the Age of Dinosaurs about 250 million years ago. We will examine the origin of dinosaurs and, based on the latest discoveries, what made (and makes) them so successful. A second mass extinction about 201 million years ago wiped out dinosaurian competitors and allowed dinosaurs to become ecologically dominant. The lecture culminates with the last great mass extinction at 65 million years ago, when a huge asteroid crashed into what is now the Yucatan Peninsula, causing the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs and paving the way for the rise of mammals and our own origins.