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The beginning of the ‘Age of Dinosaurs’: a brief overview of terrestrial biotic changes during the Triassic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2011

Nicholas C. Fraser
Affiliation:
National Museums Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh EH1 1JF, UK
Hans-Dieter Sues
Affiliation:
Department of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, MRC 121, PO Box 37012, Washington, DC 20013–7012, USA

Abstract

The first appearance of dinosaurs during the early Late Triassic coincided with marked faunal changes in terrestrial ecosystems. Most of the major groups of extant tetrapods (or their proximate sister-taxa), including mammaliaforms, crocodyliform archosaurs, lepidosaurs and turtles, also first appeared in the fossil record during the Late Triassic. On the other hand, a number of Palaeozoic ‘holdovers’, such as procolophonid parareptiles, dicynodont therapsids and many groups of temnospondyls, vanished near or at the end of the Triassic. The tempo and mode of this faunal turnover have long been debated, but there has been growing acceptance of a rather sudden event, although the precise dating of such an event remains controversial. However, new discoveries have cast doubt on this assumption. The persistence of non-dinosaurian dinosauromorphs alongside dinosaurs well into Norian times hints at a more protracted turnover. New data on Triassic insect assemblages indicate that turnover among insects may also have been more protracted and possibly not co-incident with the faunal changes among tetrapods. Future work directed toward improved absolute age assessments for major faunal assemblages will be critical for a better understanding of the transition from therapsid-dominated to dinosaur-dominated communities during the early Mesozoic.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 2011

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