10 Prehistoric Reptiles People Mistakenly Believe Were Dinosaurs
(don't make an Among Us joke, don't make an Among Us joke, don't make an Among Us joke...)
By deathwish01b
Published 2 years ago
(don't make an Among Us joke, don't make an Among Us joke, don't make an Among Us joke...)
1
Pterosaurs: These flying reptiles, descended from archosaurs and more closely related to dinosaurs than crocodiles, sadly don't quite make the cut as they're not descendants of the last common ancestor of Saurischia and Ornithischia. Close but no cigar.
2
Plesiosaurs: These bad boys come from the Sauropterygia group, a bunch of reptiles who decided land life was overrated and went back to the ocean. Fossil evidence indicates they gave birth to live young rather than coming up on land to lay eggs like sea turtles.
3
Dimetrodon: Its name literally means "two measures of teeth" and it lived in the Permian period, but it's closer to mammals than to dinos.
4
Mosasaurs: Despite its appearance in Jurassic World, the Monster From Maastricht belonged to the order Squamata, which includes lizards and snakes.
5
Euparkeria: This upstanding little lizard from the Triassic isn't a dinosaur yet, but an ancestral form of Dinosaurs and Archosaurs just learning to get its feet under it.
6
Gorgonopsid: This saber-toothed, bear-sized predator ruled Russia before the dinosaurs came along. It got wiped out along with 90% of all life on Earth.
7
Prionosuchus: This early crocodile wannabe from the middle Permian was found in Brazil, but it wasn't even a reptile. It was an amphibian--with at least one giant member growing to an estimated 30 feet long.
8
Scutosaurus: Cowabunga, this one-ton Permian critter was a distant ancestor of turtles, and had scutes on its back for protection against predators.
9
Desmetosuchus: Seated firmly on the crocodile side of the archosaur divide, this Texas longhorn of the late Triassic probably ate plants and/or insects.
10
Ichthyosaurs: Nope, they weren't dolphins, and they weren't dinosaurs either. They joined the reptile marine corps before the archosaurs got on their feet, and did pretty well for themselves until they were out-competed by Plesiosaurs and Mosasaurs, and they died out about 90 million years ago.
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