Wikipedia:Today's featured article/January 1, 2006



Dinosaurs are vertebrates that have ranged from reptile-like to bird-like. Dinosaurs dominated the terrestrial ecosystem for over 160 million years from around 230 million years ago until 65 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous period, when all non-avian dinosaurs became extinct. Knowledge about dinosaurs comes from both fossil and non-fossil records, including fossilized bones, feces, trackways, gastroliths, feathers, impressions of skin, internal organs and soft tissues. Dinosaur remains have been found on every continent on Earth, including Antarctica, showing that all land masses were at one time connected in a supercontinent called Pangaea. The ongoing dinosaur renaissance began in the 1970s and was triggered, in part, by John Ostrom's discovery of Deinonychus, an active, vicious predator that may have been warm-blooded (homeothermic), in contrast to the prevailing image of dinosaurs as sluggish and cold-blooded. Vertebrate paleontology has also become a global science, with major new discoveries in previously unexploited regions, most significantly the amazingly well-preserved feathered dinosaurs in China, which have further solidified the link between dinosaurs and their living descendants, modern birds.

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