The Second Age of the Giants
When I was a kid obsessed with dinosaurs, my favorite time period in the Mesozoic Era was the Late Jurassic by a mile. Sure, there was no T.rex , no Triceratops , no Velociraptor and no Ankylosaurus yet . And those are among many people’s favorite dinosaurs. The Cretaceous period is the one that gave us the most popular dinosaurs. But the Late Jurassic was The Amazing Age of the Giants for me. It was the time of the giant sauropods: the long and slender Diplodocus , the bulky but muscular Brontosaurus , the colossal Brachiosaurus . The time of the plated herbivorous Stegosaurus , with a weight of 3.5 metric tons and a brain the size of a walnut. Those herbivores shared the land with the mighty Allosaurus and Ceratosaurus , animals that, while not as big and robust as a T. rex , were apex predators nonetheless that herbivores of the time had all the reasons in the world to fear, especially the young or sick. It was also a time of heavy contrasts. The biggest dinosaurs shared their