A stark reminder that humans are just a blip in time compared to the dinosaurs

JK Rowling may have crafted a second (or is it third?) career with her Harry Potter spin-off book and film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

As we learn in this tremendously enjoyable work of natural history, however, even her imagination is no match for the real thing.

Dinosaurs were just so strange, so unearthly, scarcely believable, close to magical.

And, as author Steve Brusatte (below right) reminds us throughout this book (subtitled The Untold Story of a Lost World), dinosaurs were animals of this planet, borne of the same processes of evolution that made every other living thing, including us.

Around 66 million years ago, a six-mile-wide asteroid smashed into what is now Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, creating a gigantic crater and triggering the slaughter of 70% of all life on Earth.

The animals that survived this apocalypse were mostly smaller dinosaurs which were able to fly and ultimately became birds; water-based beasties such as crocodiles, fish and turtles; or small land creatures, which could burrow underground and had an omnivorous diet.

We see armoured dinosaurs, dome-headed dinosaurs, duckbilled dinosaurs, bat-like dinosaurs, fast dinosaurs, smart dinosaurs, razor-toothed dinosaurs, dog-like dinosaurs, crested dinosaurs, dinosaurs with feathers, dinosaurs with porcupine-style quills... everything dinosaurs — the list is close to endless. Not forgetting, of course, the fearsome tyrannosaurus rex: the biggest bad ass in a crowded field.

Maybe the most staggering detail of all is the length of dinosaurs’ reign.

They arrived after the catastrophic extinction event which marked the end of the Permian period, and Paleozoic era, in 252 million BC. They then rose, diversified, prospered and ruled through the Mesozoic era for 186 million years.

For perspective, homo sapiens are about 200,000 years old; modern humans, as we understand the term, 50,000 years; civilisation, maybe 10,000. We’re mere babes and, in many ways, lucky to be here at all.

The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs is a fitting testament to the previous most successful animal on Earth and a warning that all things must end — even close on 200 million years of dominance.