The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to dinosaurs:
Contents
- Types of dinosaurs
- By period
- By region
- Dinosaur fossils
- Fields that study dinosaurs
- History of dinosaurs
- Biology of dinosaurs
- Dinosaur anatomy
- Dinosaur psychology
- Dinosaurs in culture
- Animals commonly mistaken as dinosaurs
- Persons influential in dinosaurs
- References
Dinosaurs – diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period (about 230 million years ago) until the end of the Cretaceous (66 million years ago), when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of all non-avian dinosaurs at the close of the Mesozoic era. The fossil record indicates that birds evolved within theropod dinosaurs during the Jurassic period. Some of them survived the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, including the ancestors of all modern birds. Consequently, in modern classification systems, birds are considered a type of dinosaur—the only group which survived to the present day.