The Age of the Dinosaurs Continues (Part Thirty-Nine)

110,000,000 million years ago, the potentials of marine life were continuing to unfold. The sea urchin was one of the outstanding mutations of this epoch. Crabs, lobsters, and the modern types of crustaceans matured. Marked changes occurred in the fish family , a sturgeon type first appearing, but the ferocious sea serpents, descended from the land reptiles, still infested all the seas, and they threatened the destruction of the entire fish family .
This continued to be the age of the dinosaurs. They so overran the land that two species had taken to the water for sustenance during the preceding period of sea encroachment. These sea serpents represent a backward step in evolution. While some new species are progressing, certain strains remain stationery and others gravitate backward, reverting to a former state. And this is what happened when these two types of reptiles forsook the land.

As time passed, the sea serpents grew to such a size that they became very sluggish and eventually perished, because they did not have brains large enough to afford protection for their immense bodies. Their brains weighed less than two ounces notwithstanding the fact that these huge ichthyosaurs sometimes grew to be fifty feet long, the majority being over thirty-five feet in length. The marine crocodilians were also a reversion from the land type of reptile, but unlike the sea serpents, these animals always returned to the land to lay their eggs.

Soon after two species of dinosaurs migrated to the water in a futile attempt at self-preservation, two other types were driven to the air by the bitter competition of life on land. But these flying pterosaurs were not the ancestors of the true birds of subsequent ages. They evolved from the hollow-boned leaping dinosaurs, and their wings were of batlike formation with a spread of twenty to twenty-five feet. These ancient flying reptiles grew to be ten feet long, and they had separable jaws much like those of modern snakes. For a time, these flying reptiles appeared to be success, but they failed to evolve along lines which would enable them to survive as air navigators. They represent the no surviving strains of bird ancestry.

Turtles increased during this period, first appearing in North America. Their ancestors came over from Asia by way of the northern land bridge.

One hundred million years ago the reptilian age was drawing to a close, as they slowly were on their way to extinction. The dinosaurs, for all their enormous mass, were all but brainless animals, lacking the intelligence to provide sufficient food to nourish such enormous bodies. And so, did these sluggish land reptiles perish in ever-increasing numbers. Henceforth, evolution will follow the growth of brains, not physical bulk, and the development of brains will characterize each succeeding epoch of animal evolution and planetary progress.

(In Memory of Dad)Quote: We talk without listening to each other. That is the best way to get along. Alfred de Musset-Pathay

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