Paleozoic(Ancient life) era

The Paleozoic is bracketed by two of the most important events in the history of animal life. At its beginning, multicelled animals underwent a dramatic "explosion" in diversity, and almost all living animal phyla appeared within a few millions of years. At the other end of the Paleozoic, the largest mass extinction in history wiped out approximately 90% of all marine animal species. The causes of both these events are still not fully understood and the subject of much research and controversy. Roughly halfway in between, animals, fungi, and plants alike colonized the land, the insects took to the air, and the limestone shown in this picture was deposited near Burlington, Missouri.

The Paleozoic took up over half of the Phanerozoic, approximately 300 million years. During the Paleozoic there were six major continental land masses; each of these consisted of different parts of the modern continents. For instance, at the beginning of the Paleozoic, today's western coast of North America ran east-west along the equator, while Africa was at the South Pole. These Paleozoic continents experienced tremendous mountain building along their margins, and numerous incursions and retreats of shallow seas across their interiors. Large limestone outcrops, like the one shown above, are evidence of these periodic incursions of continental seas.

Many Paleozoic rocks are economically important. For example, much of the limestone quarried for building and industrial purposes, as well as the coal deposits of western Europe and the eastern United States, were formed during the Paleozoic.

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/paleozoic/paleozoic.html

Kronosaurus

Kronosaurus was the largest marine reptile that ever lived. It belonged to the category of plesiosaur, which is a meat-eating reptile. As considered by most of us, Kronosaurus is not a dinosaur, it is a plesiosaur. It was known to have been lived in the early cretaceous period and it belonged to the Dolichorhynchopidae family. It is known to have been lived around 110 million years ago. The term Kronosaurus was derived from the Greek word and the meaning of the term is krono's lizard. Kronos was known to be the Greek god of time, who is known to have eaten his own children for the purpose of guarding his powers. The term Kronosaurus is pronounced as crow-no-sore-us. Kronosaurus is known to have been lived in the country of Australia and it was a highly skilled swimmer. Apart from Australia , these plesiosaurs would have been lived in South America and Columbia as well. The fossils of Kronosaurus were found in Queensland , Australia in the year 1889 and it was found by A. Crombie. It was named in the year 1924 by Longman.

Kronosaurus were known to be the ferocious predators of the sea and it would have been lived in the open oceans, but would have also required swimming to thesurface since it was an air breathing reptile. They might have been able to move a little in the land like seals.

From the fossils of Kronosaurus, it was found that it would have got a pointed tail, short neck with four long flippers and a huge head. It has a rounded teeth and strong jaws and tooth of the Kronosaurus was so strong that it would easily crush the shells. The four paddle-like flippers had enabled the Kronosaurus to move around water like sea turtles. The diet of these plesiosaurs was large squids, ichthyosaurs and sharks. It was known to have been around 30 feet (i.e.) 9m long. The head of Kronosaurus alone was around 9 feet (i.e.) 1/3 rd of the total body length. It has been found that it would have been weighed around seven tons. Even though, the Kronosaurus were known to have been lived in oceans, it would have swim to the surface for laying eggs as is being done by turtles nowadays. Like turtles, Kronosaurus has also laid eggs in nests dug in the sand.

According to a research Kronosaurus made its living just like the present day shark in such a way that it had eaten every all animals living in the water coming in its way. It has been found that it did not restrict itself in eating just squids and fish, but feasted occasionally with other aquatic reptiles as well.

From the fossils of Kronosaurus, researchers have found some stones in theirstomach and they assumed that these stones might have been consumed by the Kronosaurus for grinding up their food or the stone might have also been used as ballast for the purpose of diving. Hope, you might have got the required information regarding Kronosaurus.

http://www.dinosaurfact.net/Marine/Kronosaurus.php

Megalania

Megalania prisca, the largest terrestrial lizard known, was a giant goanna (monitor lizard). First described from the Darling Downs in Queensland by Sir Richard Owen in 1859, Megalania lived in a variety of eastern Australian Pleistocene habitats - open forests, woodlands and perhaps grasslands.Megalania would have been a formidable reptilian predator like its relative the Komodo Dragon of Indonesia, and may have eaten large mammals, snakes, other reptiles and birds.


http://australianmuseum.net.au/Megalania-prisca

stegodon

The name Stegodon is derived from the Greek words στεγειν stegein ("to cover") and οδον odοn ("tooth") because of the distinctive ridges on the animal's molars. In the past, stegodonts were believed to be the ancestors of elephants and mammoths, but it is currently believed that they have no modern descendants. Stegodon is derived from the genus Stegolophodon, an extinct genus known from the Miocene of Asia. Stegodon is considered to be a sister group of the mammoth, as well as the elephants.

Stegodonts lived in large parts of Asia during the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs. Some Stegodon species were among the largest of all Proboscidea, with adults being 13 feet high at the shoulder, 26 feet long, with 10 feet long nearly straight tusks. In some individuals, the tusks were so close together that the trunk probably did not lie between them but instead draped over.

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Mosasaurus

Mosasaurus was a large, 15-metre long aquatic carnivore from the Late Cretaceous about 90-65 million years ago. It gave its name to a group of marine lizards - Mosasaurs. Mosasaurus means 'Meuse Lizard', referring to where it was first found. It fed on such prey as sea birds, sharks and large fish, Plio/Plesiosaurs and even other Mosasaurs.

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Elasmotherium

Elasmotherium("thin plate beast") is an extinct genus of giant rhinoceros endemic to Eurasia during the late Pliocene through the Pleistocene, documented from 2.6 mya to as late 50.000 years ago, possibly later, in the late Pleistocene, an approximate span of slightly less than 2.6 million years. three species were recognized. the best known, E. sibiricum was the size of a mammoth, an is thought to borne a large, thick horn on its forehead which was used for defense, attacking mates, driving away competitors, sweeping snow from grass in winter and digging for water and plant roots. Like all rhinoceroses, elasmotheres were herbivorous. Unlike any others, its high-crowned were ever-growing. Its legs were longer those of other rhinos and were designed for galloping, giving him a horse-like gait. The Russian paleontologist of the 19th century who discovered and named the initial fossils were influenced by ancient legends of a huge unicorn roaming he steppes of Siberia. To date no evidence either contradicts or confirms the possibility that Elasmotherium survived into legendary times. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elasmotherium

Ultrasaurus

This article is about the dubious dinosaur genus from South Korea. For the invalid dinosaur genus from Colorado, see Ultrasauros.

Ultrasaurus is a genus of sauropod dinosaur discovered by Haang Mook Kim in South Korea. However, the name was first used unofficially (as anomen nudum) in 1979 by Jim Jensen to describe a set of giant dinosaur bones he discovered in the United States. Because Kim published the name for his specimen before Jensen could do so officially, Jensen renamed his specimen Ultrasauros. Jensen's giant sauropod was later found to be a chimera, and the type remains are now assigned to Supersaurus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrasaurus

American Lion

The term "American lion" has sometimes been used to mean the cougar.

This article is about the feline. For the Pulitzer-winning biography, see American Lion (book).

The American lion (Panthera atrox) — also known as the North American lion or American cave lion — is an extinct feline of thefamily Felidae, endemic to North America during the Pleistocene epoch (1.8 mya to 11,000 years ago), existing for approximately1.79 million years.^[1] While it was once considered a subspecies of lion closely related to the Eurasian cave lion (Panthera leo spelaea),^[2] later study showed that it was not in fact a true lion and cannot be assigned to any modern species of cat.^[3]

The American lion was one of the largest types of cat ever to have existed, slightly larger than the Early Middle Pleistocene primitive cave lion, P. leo fossilis and about twenty-five percent larger than the modern African lion.^[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Lion