Animals of Long Ago
Animals of Long Ago
Imagine animals like fish with legs. Imagine trees like giant feather dusters. That’s what some animals and trees looked like, once.Just as you change as you grow older, the world changes and the things that live on it change. Most scientists believe that the world has changed many times in the past. And many kinds of animals have lived on it.Once there were scaly reptiles as big as houses. Once there were horses no bigger than cats. And once, very long ago, there were no animals of any kind living on the land. All the animals lived in water.The next few pages will show you some of the strange animals that once lived on the earth.The Pteranodon was a flying reptile.
Triceratops was a reptile.
Strange sea animals
Scientists say that five hundred million years ago all plants and animals lived in the sea. There were sponges, jellyfish, worms with legs, and things like clams. And there was another animal that…
Fish in armor
According to most scientists, the fishes that swam in the seas 430 million years ago were covered with hard, bony armor. They had no jaws like the fish of today. Their mouths were just holes in the…
The first four-footed animal
Imagine a fish with legs! Once upon a time, there really was an animal that looked like a fish with legs. Most scientists believe that about 400 million years ago it swam in the warm, green waters…
A 250-million-year-old puzzle
Scientists tell us that about 250 million years ago there lived a big reptile called Dimetrodon. It was about as long as a small automobile. It ate smaller reptiles. Dimetrodon had a big fin like a…
