Dinosaurs get all the glory. But aetosaurs, a heavily armored cousin of modern crocodiles, ruled the world before dinosaurs did. These tanks of the Triassic came in a variety of shapes and sizes ...

Everyone knows about the mass extinction that ended the Age of Dinosaurs. About 66 million years ago, a seven-mile-wide asteroid slammed into our planet and began a mass extinction that wiped out all ...

During the Triassic period, crocodile ancestors radiated into a wide array of terrestrial forms, from slender, long-legged animals something like wolves to huge, fearsome predators at the top of ...

This is the lineage to which present-day crocodiles and alligators belong. They are a paltry bunch today, about 25 species all told. But back in the Triassic, there were scores of them ...

Phytosaurs were successful Triassic crocodile-like reptiles. They were outcompeted and eventually driven extinct by the crocodiles, who became very diverse by the Cretaceous. The largest crocodiles ...

Frogs, salamanders, crocodiles, turtles, and snakes slunk and slithered on and off the Triassic coast, lakes, and rivers. Pterosaurs, a group of flying reptiles, took to the air. On firm ground ...