Maiasaura

Maiasaura, a Hadrosaurid genus, famous as a "good mother lizard," lived in North America about 75 million years ago, probably the direct ancestor of the Hadrosaur Edmontosaurus. It was named by Jack Horner and Robert Makela in 1979. Astronaut Loren Acton took a bone fragment and eggshell piece of a Maiasaura on an 8-day Spacelab 2 mission in 1985—the first dinosaur in space!

http://jurassicpark.wikia.com/wiki/Maiasaura

Quetzalcoatlus

Quetzalcoatlus was a huge pterosaur with a wingspan of up to 15 metres - the largest flying creature of all time. It is the last known pterosaur which survived to the very end of the Cretaceous period. Quetzalcoatlus was named after the Aztec's feathered-serpent god, Quetzalcoatl, by Douglas Lawson who first found the remains at Big Bend National Park in Texas. 

Despite its huge size, the skeleton was lightly built and the whole animal probably weighed no more than 100 kilograms. Its neck was extremely long, its slender jaws were toothless and its head was topped by a long, bony crest. Unlike most other pterosaur fossils the Quetzalcoatlus remains have not been found in marine strata but in the sand and silt of a large river's flood plain and this has raised questions about how it lived. 

It was a good soarer - certainly able to cover large distances. This, coupled with its long neck has prompted the idea that it lived rather like a vulture and fed on the corpses of dead dinosaurs. But some palaeontologists, noting the long slender jaws suggest that it probed soft ground and pools for molluscs and crustaceans. Others think that it flew low over the warm shallow seas plucking fish from the surface.


http://www.abc.net.au/dinosaurs/fact_files/volcanic/quetzalcoatlus.htm

Carnotaurus

Carnotaurus was a large dinosaur predator that lived in South America during the Late Cretaceous Period. It is a relative of another theropod dinosaur from Madagascar called Majungasaurus(formerly Majungatholus). Characteristics of Carnotaurus include their very small hands as well as horns above their eyes, and a short snout. Females are usually smaller and have smaller horns. Males use their horns in fights with other males, as well as use their mating season camo, to impress females. When compared to their body size, the arms of the Carnotaurus were smaller even than those of the T. rex. One of the main prey for this dinosaur wasSaltasaurus, a medium-sized sauropod with armor. It had the most smallest arms out of all dinosaurs.


http://jurassicpark.wikia.com/wiki/Carnotaurus

Fossil Facts

Fossils are what's left of plants and animals that were alive a long time ago. When the plant or animal died, part of it was left on the earth. That part became trapped in the sediments, and the sediments became rock. Once the rock formed, the fossil was trapped inside. Some fossils are destroyed because sediments undergo a lot of heat and pressure when they become rocks, and the heat and pressure might destroy the fossils. Most fossils are found in sedimentary rocks.

There are two types of fossils:  vertebrate and invertebrate. Vertebrate fossils come from animals that had bones. Invertebrate fossils come from plants or animals that didn't have bones.

Sometimes fossils are parts of bodies like bones and teeth. Sometimes they are parts of leaves. Other times they might be animal tracks.

When a plant or animal leaves a shape, that shape is called a mold. If mud or minerals fill the mold and harden, that's called a cast. It has the same shape that the animal or plant had when it was alive. Imprints are molds of thin objects like leaves. Wings and feathers can also leave imprints because they are very thin.

A fossil isn’t the actual bone or leaf or other object that was left. Instead, it’s just an object that’s the same shape as the original item. It’s made up of various minerals and other material that has hardened.

We can use fossils to help us learn about the animals or plants that have died. This kind of study is called paleontology. Scientists have used fossil bones to put together skeletons of dinosaurs and other animals. We can tell how large they were and how they walked by looking at the skeletons. The teeth of the fossils show what kinds of foods they ate. Sharp teeth probably mean the dinosaurs ate meat (other dinosaurs). Flat teeth probably mean the dinosaurs ate plants.

Amebelodon

Amebelodon is a member of a diverse group of primitive proboscideans called gomphotheres, a group that also gave rise to the modern elephants and their close relative the mammoth. The most striking attribute of this animal is its lower tusks, which are narrow, elongated,and distinctly flattened with the degree of flattening varying among the different species. Amebelodon first appeared in the Great Plains and Gulf Coast regions of North America during the late Miocene, roughly between 9 and 8 million years ago, and apparently became extinct on this continent sometime around 6 million years ago. It managed to migrate to Asia via theBering land bridge where it has been found in a number of late Miocene sites, particularly in China. The youngest record of Amebelodon is from a 5 million year old site in North Africa.

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

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Anatotitan

Anatotitan ( /əˌnætɵˈtaɪtən/ ə-nat-o-ty-tən; "large duck") is a genus of flat-headed or hadrosaurine hadrosaurid ornithopod dinosaur (a "duck-billed dinosaur") from the very end of the Cretaceous Period, in what is now North America. Remains of Anatotitan have been preserved in the Hell Creek and Lance Formations, which are dated to the late Maastrichtian stage of the Late Cretaceous Period, representing the last three million years before the extinction of the dinosaurs (68 to 65 million years ago). This dinosaur is known from at least six specimens pertaining to two species, discovered in the U.S. states of South Dakota and Montana. Several of these specimens are extremely complete skeletons with well-preserved skulls. It was a large animal, up to approximately 12 meters (39 ft) in length, with an extremely long and low skull.Anatotitan exhibits one of the most striking examples of the "duckbill" snout common to hadrosaurs. It has a long taxonomic history, including decades classified with the genera Anatosaurus, Diclonius, and Trachodon.


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

Cenozoic(New life) era

The last and most recent of the geologic periods is the Cenozoic Era. Its name means “new life” coming from the Greek root kainos, meaning “new,” and zoic, “life.” While this new life came to refer to mammals-thus coined The Age of Mammals- this new life could have just as easily been the angiosperm or flowering plants, the insects, the newest fish (teleostei) or modern birds. All of these groups, including the mammals, continued to evolve during this present Era.

http://www.fossils-facts-and-finds.com/cenozoic_era.html

Mesozoic(Middle life) era

This is the second of three geologic eras squeezed into the Phanerozoic ("Evident Life") Eon that covers the last 10% of Earth's whole geologic history. This is the era we all think of when we imagine the Ancient Earth! Rampaging dinosaurs! Dive-bombing pterodactyls! Endless forests of giant ferns! Erupting Volcanoes! (Sorry, no cave men! They didn't show up until the end of the Cenozoic.)

The Mesozoic Era lasted about 180 million years, from about 245 million years ago to about 65 million years ago. The Mesozoic is divided into just three time periods: the Triassic, the Jurassic, and the Cretaceous. Since lots of things were going on in each time period, we can only summarize the events. You can learn more by going to your library or searching the Internet for words like "Mesozoic" or the names of each of the periods.

In the view above, we see Earth in the middle of the Jurassic Period, in mid-Mesozoic times (sort of a middle-middle view). The supercontinents Gondwanaland and Laurasia collided some time back to form a single super-super continent called Pangea ("All-Earth"). But plate tectonics continues its irresistible motions, and even as we look, Pangea is beginning to break up into the continents we know now. At upper left, North America is just breaking away from the northwest coast of Africa, and the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico are beginning to form. The Appalachian Mountains of the eastern United States are a high, rugged mountain range, something like the Rocky Mountains of today. Over the next fifty million years or so, South America, India, and Antarctica will all break away from Africa and move toward their present positions.

Life is diversifying rapidly, and beginning to look familiar. The dominant animals on both land and sea are reptiles, the most famous of which are the dinosaurs. Dinosaurs began in the Triassic, spread during the Jurassic, and dominated Earth in the Cretaceous. They are so prominent that the Mesozoic is also called "The Age of Reptiles." But dinosaurs are not the only life form around: birds and mammals also appear during the Mesozoic, as well as deciduous trees and flowering plants.

The climate during the Mesozoic is warm; so warm that there are no ice caps at all, even at the poles! Plants grow like crazy in the warmth and moisture, so there is food everywhere for your average hungry 50-ton Ultrasaurus! So what happened to this Dino Paradise? More change! A mass extinction like those in thePaleozoic ended the idyllic Mesozoic Era (if you can call dodging your friendly local T-Rex as idyllic). More than half of all existing life forms disappeared, including virtually all of the dinosaurs. Why? There are many hypotheses, including disease, volcanic eruptions, and giant impacts. (Pay a visit to the Dinosaur Floor to learn more.


http://www.cotf.edu/ete/modules/msese/earthsysflr/mesozoic.html