HOW DINOS EVOLVED IN INDIA

BARAPASAURUS TAGOREI

India’s long-legged vegetarian. Named for its build (bara = big, pa = leg) and for Rabindranath Tagore. Long-necked, weighing 14 tonnes, it’s one of India’s most complete skeletons. We even know it had spoon-shaped teeth.

RAJASAURUS NARMADENSIS

The top dog of the Cretaceous period. It walked on two legs, had a horn near its crown, and would have been agile, and possessing a strong bite. Fossils found near Ahmedabad.

Gondwana

itself splits. Antarctica, Madagascar, India, and Australia, separate from Africa. South America drifts away westward. In the fight for shrinking resources, dinos evolve. More species appear

The Indian subcontinent

drifts northward, taking her dinosaurs with her. Local dinos now include the Indosuchus, Isisaurus, Rajasaurus, Laevisuchus, Jainosaurus and Campylognathus

Something terrible happens

that wipes out half the world’s species on every continent. Birds are safe. Most mammals, turtles, crocodiles, salamanders and frogs survive. Snails, starfish, even hardy plants make it through. Dinosaurs, however, die. Scientists believe it was probably a meteor or volcanic eruption that clouded the sky with dust, polluting the water, withering greens and eventually killing the dinos.

Pangea,

rotating anti-clockwise, splits slowly in two. In the south is Gondwana (today’s India, Africa, Madagascar, Antarctica, Australia and South America). In the north is Laurasia (modern China, Europe, North America and north Asia). They take their dinosaurs with them. India is home to the Barapasaurus, Kotasaurus and Lamplughsaura

India, northward bound,

crashes into Asia, creating the Himalayas, much after the last dinosaur vanished. On Earth’s

only continent, Pangea, a mass extinction wipes out over 90% marine life and 80% of life on land. The world is cold. Ferns, mosses and conifers thrive. It’s perfect for a new race to begin. The first dinosaurs appear, like the Alwalkeria, Pradhania, Nambalia, Jaklapallisaurus