LATE JURASSIC

Late Jurassic Map The Jurassic period named from rocks formed at this time in the Jura Mountains of France and Switzerland marked the middle of the Mesozoic era. The earth's climate was generally warm and moist in the Jurassic and rains watered what has been Triassic deserts.Brachiosaurus, Barosaurus, Diplodocus, Cetiosaurus and Camarasaurus roamed North America, Europe and Africa. North America has large areas of exposed late Jurassic rock. The enormous four legged plant eaters called sauropods were the dominate animals of the period. At least six kinds of sauropods are known to have lived in North America in the Late Jurassic period. These are Apatosaurus (Brontosaurus), Camarasaurus, Haplocanthosaurus, Diplodocus, Barosaurus and Brachiosaurus.Walking with Dinosaurs (WWD) by BBC was the best dinosaur production to date. The Jurassic segment set in North America featured Diplodocus, Stegosaurus, Dryosaurus, Ornitholestes, Allosaurus and Ceratosaurus. Diplodocus had the staring role.There was more diversity among the sauropods of North America than is usually appreciated. While Diplodocus and Apatosaurus are the best known diplodocids there were also a number of less common relatives some of them becoming very large like Barosaurus, Seismosaurus and Supersaurus.The Morrison is a widespread deposit in the western United States. A Jurassic flood plain characterized by meandering rivers, small ponds and lakes. It includes arid sandy desert in the south west and a wetter swampy environments in the north. Dominated by large plant eating dinosaurs.The Mighty Morrison, which gives the best picture of a Late Jurassic environment. We get a more detailed picture of life in Jurassic than anywhere in the world.For Plesiosaurs and Ichthyosaurs the Jurassic was a golden age. Plesiosaurs are the really big reptiles of the Mesozoic Sea.Late Jurassic Tendaguru is a warm coastal plain subject to periodic possibly season droughts. The fauna is dominated by the sauropods Dicraeosaurus, Brachiosaurus, Barosaurus, Tornieria and Janenschia.The Middle and Late Jurassic China seems to have been isolated from the faunas of Africa and North American.The best information about the Triassic Dinosaurs comes from South AmericaTriassic Europe Prosauropods are the most common dinosaurs from latest Triassic to the end of the Early Jurassic.The Early Triassic is dominated by the plants and animals that had survived the Late Permian extinction.Tendaguru East Africa mirrors the Morrison Fauna of North America. Late Jurassic Tendaguru is a warm coastal plain subject to periodic possibly season droughts. The fauna is dominated by the sauropods Dicraeosaurus, Brachiosaurus, Barosaurus, Tornieria and Janenschia.Asian Jurassic dinosaurs are mostly known from China. China has produced two of the most diverse Middle Jurassic faunas in the world. The Middle and Late Jurassic China seems to have been isolated from the faunas of Africa and North American.

The Late Jurassic 159 - 144 million years ago the continents have seperated into the northern Laurasia and southern Gondwanaland.

Giants continue to develop in the Seas of the Jurassic. Liopleurodon was a giant of the Jurassic sea. Fish, sharks and ammonites continue to evolve. The first documented birds are found in Europe at Solenhofen along with other small dinosaur fauna. Pterodactyls start to replace the rhamphorrynids. At the the end of the Jurassic the continents have separated and new plants begin to join the conifers, ferns and cycads.

Bullyland Apatosaurus Battat Ceratprsaurus

West Laurasian: - In this megafauna sauropods predominated, and were primarily of the diplodocid and camarasaurid families, with a few haplocanthosaurs and the occasional huge brachiosaur.  Morrison  dinosaurs exhibited a tendency to increase in size, possibly caused by increasingly harsh and arid conditions, so that by the mid Tithonian they were truly gigantic.  Then they suddenly died out, leaving a number of small dinosaurs, mammals, and lower vertebrates to carry on.

Bullyland Europa

Central Laurasia:  Europe during the Jurassic seems to have consisted of a number of large islands separated by shallow sea.  A number of different types of dinosaurs have been found in Portugal, Spain, England, and Germany.  Sauropods include not only most "standard" Jurassic types but families totally indigenous to Europe during the Jurassic period.  The first protobirds like Archaeopteryx inhabited the islands of Europe, no doubt benefiting from the isolation from large predators and tendency to evolutionary novelty that small islands provide.

Battat Stegosaurus Invicta MammenchisaurusEast Laurasia:  Animals in China the Eastern part of the world-continent remained quite different to those of the west.  Stegosaurs were exceedingly diverse in China, and include both primitive and advanced forms.  They lived alongside basal (ancestral) marginocephalians, persistently primitive euhelopid sauropods and Triassic holdovers like tritylodontid therapsids and short-headed brachyopid labyrinthodonts.  Allosaurids are also known from the Late Jurassic of China indicating that these carnivores were able to wander widely over the Earth's surface (unlike the euhelopid sauropods which are not known outside of China).

Kaiyodo Kentrosaurus Toyway Allosaurus

West Gondwanaland. West Gondwanaland  had the Tendaguru fauna that was very similar to that of North America, with many types of dinosaurs in common.  But the Laurasian Camarasaurus is absent, and Brachiosaurus, which is rare in North America (West Laurasia), is the most common sauropod in the Tendaguru formation (West Gondwana).  However, it appears to be a distinct genus Giraffititan from the West Laurasian form. The small stegosaur Kentrosaurus closely resembles primitive European and Chinese forms, but is quite unlike the large and advanced American Stegosaurus.  There were also several types of dinosaurs that were Gondwanan endemics as well.  Of significance were Dicraeosaurus a small short-necked persistently primitive diplodocoid sauropod.

East Gondwana:  Labyrinthodonts must have lived in East Gondwanaland Australia and Antartica as well, because they are known there from both the Early Jurassic and the middle Cretaceous.  Allosaurids are also known.

Next to the Early Cretaceous