Coelophysis
c. 215-201 million years ago · Event
A lean, sharp-toothed hunter the size of a large dog, running on two legs across Triassic floodplains — one of the earliest dinosaurs known from complete skeletons, thanks to a New Mexico quarry holding hundreds of them. Fast, light and social, Coelophysis shows the early body plan of the theropods, the group to which all later meat-eaters, T. rex included, belong.
On these timelines: The Age of Dinosaurs, Master
More from The Age of Dinosaurs
- Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction (66000000 BCE)
- Tyrannosaurus rex (68000000 BCE)
- Mesozoic Era (252000000 BCE)
- Paleozoic Era (538800000 BCE)
- Jurassic Period (201000000 BCE)
- Cretaceous Period (145000000 BCE)
- Triassic Period (252000000 BCE)
- Archaeopteryx and the first birds (150000000 BCE)
Around 215000000 BCE
- First dinosaurs (230000000 BCE)
- First mammals (225000000 BCE)
- First pterosaurs take flight (228000000 BCE)
- Pangaea begins to break apart (200000000 BCE)
- Triassic–Jurassic extinction (201000000 BCE)
- Plateosaurus (214000000 BCE)