This Is What Earth Looked Like Long Before Dinosaurs Arrived

When people imagine what Earth looked like in its ancient days, they often picture the time of the Dinosaurs: a planet filled with strong and big animals with huge teeth, long necks, and giant predators that could easily stomp a human. However, the time of the dinosaurs arrived around 245 million years ago, but Earth is billions of years old.

In other words, there was a time in the past when the planet was not ruled by dinosaurs and looked a lot different from what we often picture when we imagine ancient times. So, let’s look back in Earth’s history to see what it could have been like in those early days before the first Dinosaurs existed.

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From Lava World to Giant Bugs and Early Reptiles

Earth’s story began with space rocks colliding with each other, forming a young planet. During this time, the surface was mostly molten, and asteroids were constantly hitting the crust. Then, over hundreds of millions of years, the planet cooled down, and the atmosphere became more established.

The hard crust of the Earth was formed, and millions of years of rain compounded to make the earliest forms of oceans. Then, somewhere in these bodies of water, around 3.5 to 3.7 billion years ago, the first simple single-celled life appeared. However, for billions of years, this lifeform stayed tiny and microscopic. Very different than the giant dinosaurs we were used to imagining during the early periods of the planet.

Much later on, the Cambrian explosion happened, where many different animal groups and species evolved in the oceans. This was around 540 to 530 million years ago, when visible life became more common, such as worms and arthropods. After this period, life on Earth continued to diversify until the very first plants invaded the land, beginning with shorelines and other grounds near water.

Slowly, this became the foundation of more complex plants appearing, because by getting out of the water, they would be able to perform photosynthesis more efficiently, and get an abundance of necessary materials needed to survive. It also helped escape competition and fill ecological niches. This move did not come without challenges, but over time, it still led to the Earth transitioning from bare and dry rock to a green landscape with vegetation.

By the Devonian and Carboniferous periods, from 419 to 299 million years ago, Earth looked a lot different again. Taller trees and widespread plants started appearing. They pump more oxygen to the atmosphere, and then insects and other arthropods grow to enormous sizes. Examples include Arthropleura and Meganeura.

Then, in the Permian period, the majority of the world’s land joined to form a supercontinent called Pangaea. This meant that the inner lands are often hot and dry. The forests that once covered the area shrank. Mammals and reptiles’ relative species were the ones that dominated this era. Dinosaurs would then later appear tens of millions of years later, after the “Great Dying” had happened.

Read more: Wikipedia

Watch: This Is What Earth Looked Like Before The Dinosaurs

This Is What Earth Looked Like Before The Dinosaurs

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Author's Final Thoughts

By the time the dinosaurs appeared, Earth had already encountered so many changes both geographically and biologically. Different species and lifeforms dominated the planet in each era. What was once a burning and young Earth became filled with oceans, leading to the appearance of diversified organisms.

Then life moved from just the water to the land. They have grown larger, then shrunk, and then faced more than just one global disaster that has led to massive extinctions. Our planet has looked a lot different over time. It was once a hellish ball of rock, watery and green, swampy and wet, dry and hot, and everything else in between. But, despite it all, life kept on adapting, until it led to the majestic giant creatures we now call dinosaurs.

Read next: The One Time in History When the Ocean Was Safer Than Land