Welcome to the
Fantastic Primeval World,
Land of the Dinosaurs!
"The dinosaurs were some of the most magnificent creatures that ever lived. [...] Nimble, darting, brightly coloured meat-eaters chased lizards through the ferny undergrowth. Big meat-eaters strode dragon-like through the forests hunting slow-moving prey. Huge long-necked plant-eaters, veritable mountains of flesh, roamed open plains and woodlands in family groups, browsing from the tops of the trees, and keeping wary eyes open for the predacious hunters. Small, fleet-footed plant-eaters sprinted on their long hind legs from one patch of vegetation to another, snatching at leaves and shoots, and quickly ducking away when danger threatened. Lumbering armoured plant-eaters, safe behind their flamboyant and colourful plates and horns, chomped and chewed the prolific vegetation in the warm and equable climates of the long, tranquil Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.
For over 180 million years they were the most successful life form on the planet.
And then they all disappeared."
-- Dougal Dixon, The New Dinosaurs: An Alternative Evolution
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"Once upon this same Earth, beneath this same Sun, long before you, before the Ape, and the Elephant as well, before the Wolf, the Bison, the Whale, before the Mammoth and the Mastodon, [was] the time of dinosaurs. Now, the dinosaurs were of two kinds: some had flat teeth and ate the leaves of trees, and some had sharp teeth for eating meat, and they preyed on the leaf-eaters."
-- Rooter (Pat Hingle), The Land Before Time
