16 December 2009

Out Of South America

Humans have their origins in Africa. Fossil evidence suggests, however, that dinosaurs have their origins in South America.

[T]he progenitors of all three dinosaur lineages — theropods, sauropods and ornithischians (the group that includes Triceratops) — originated in the portion of the supercontinent Pangaea that is now South America some time before 230 million years ago. From there . . . dinosaurs diversified and spread to dominate terrestrial ecosystems for more than 165 million years.

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