Did people and dinosaurs live at the same time?
No! After the dinosaurs died out, nearly 65 million years passed before people
appeared on Earth. However, small mammals (including shrew-sized primates) were
alive at the time of the dinosaurs. Many scientists who study dinosaurs (vertebrate
paleontologists) now think that birds are direct descendants of one line of
carnivorous dinosaurs, and some consider that they in fact represent modern
living dinosaurs. This theory remains under discussion and shows that there is
still much we don't know about dinosaurs.
Return to Dinosaurs:
Facts and Fiction
This page is URL:https://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dinosaurs/people.html
For more information, please contact Robert Weems at rweems@usgs.gov or Ronald Litwin at rlitwin@usgs.gov.
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Last modified 05-17-01 (krw)