Lucky break allowed dinosaurs to rule Earth: study

Reuters ^ | Sep 11, 2008 | Will Dunham

[decimon]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Thanks to a big stroke of luck 200 million years ago, dinosaurs beat out a fearsome group of creatures competing for the right to rule the Earth, scientists said on Thursday.

Dinosaurs appeared about 230 million years ago, during the Triassic Period, and competed for 30 million years with a group of reptiles called crurotarsans, cousins of today's crocodiles that grew to huge sizes and looked a lot like dinosaurs.

[Pelham]

Plus the fact that they took up smoking unfiltered Lucky Strikes.

[SunkenCiv]

Baleen? And it looks like a whale...

[Centurion2000]

That's a big dang gator. Sarcosuchus imperator