Back When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth

Don't worry, this fact isn't as sad as The Land Before Time.

Howdy! It’s Joey, back with more Fun Fact Friyay. Hold onto your bones because we’re taking a trip to the past.

Photo by Nate DeWaele on Unsplash

T. Rex dinosaurs lived closer to today than they did to the Stegosaurus era.

Dinosaurs are so cool that they have two “national” holidays, albeit ones that are very close to each other. National Dinosaur Day is celebrated both on the third Tuesday of May and on June 1. So, as we say goodbye to May, let’s say hello to some dinos!

Giga Pets and Tamagotchis were all the rage when I was growing up. Taking care of a little pocket-sized monster? What a fun time! I had more luck with them than I do today with plants, that’s for sure.

An offshoot of Giga Pets was Dino Pets—the same concept, only we were now taking care of eggs that could hatch into a dinosaur. I loved it and sometimes wondered what it would be like having a dinosaur as a real-life pet.

Of course, it would be monstrous. Dinosaurs were huge and destructive. The four walls of a single-family home could hardly contain them.

When dinosaurs are depicted onscreen or in drawings, they’re often shown yukking it up as a medley of groups. T. Rexes are hanging out with Stegosauruses. Pterodactyls are soaring alongside Triceratops. Yet this sort of dinosaur collage isn’t entirely true.

Notably, Stegosaurus lived during the late Jurassic Period, about 159 to 144 million years ago. These dinosaurs are recognizable by their spiky tails and plates along the body, which were possibly used to regulate heat and warm up or get cool as needed.

Meanwhile, Tyrannosaurus Rex didn’t come around until the Cretaceous Period, about 68 to 66 million years ago. The name is fitting: “Tyrannosaurus” means “tyrant lizard” in Greek, and “Rex” is Latin for “king.” The “King of the Tyrant Lizards” was a meat eater and could easily consume nearly anything it caught.

Even if we take the most recent Stegosaurus and the oldest T. Rex, that’s still a gap of 76 million years. That makes this fact true for another 10 million years or so. If this newsletter is still around by then, I’ll update with a correction.

In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this delightful collection of dinosaur-themed Calvin and Hobbes comic strips.

P.S. Did you know I wrote a book? There might even be a bird appearance in the first chapter, and what are birds but evolved dinosaurs? Grab it on Bookshop or Amazon.