The flying reptiles were still more bird-like in structure, though gigantic in size. Imagine the appearance of a great lizard with bat-like, webbed wings and bat-like, toothed jaws! The first feathered fossil bird was discovered in the limestone rock of Bavaria. It was a wonderfully preserved fossil, showing the feathers perfectly. Three fingers of each "hand" were free and clawed, so that the creature could seize its prey, and yet use its feathered wings in flight. The small head had jaws set with socketed teeth, like a reptile's, and the long, lizard tail of twenty-one bones had a pair of side feathers at each joint. This Archeopteryx is the reptilian ancestor of birds. During this age of the world, one branch of the reptile group established the family line of birds. The bird-like reptiles are the connecting link between the two races. How much both birds and reptiles have changed from that ancient type, their common ancestor!
I have mentioned but a few of the types of animals that make the reptilian age the wonder of all time. One after another skeletons are unearthed and new species are found. The Connecticut River Valley, with its red sandstones and shales of the Mesozoic Era, is famous among geologists, because it preserves the tracks of reptiles, insects, and crustaceans. These signs tell much of the life that existed when these flakes of stone were sandy and muddy stretches Not many bones have been found, however. The thickness of these rocks is between one and two miles. The time required to accumulate so much sediment must have been very great.
By permission of the American Museum of Natural History
Model of a three-horned Dinosaur, Triceratops, from Cretaceous of Montana. Animal in life about 25 feet long
By permission of the American Museum of Natural History
Mounting the forelegs of Brontosaurus, the aquatic Dinosaur
It is not clear just what caused the race of giant reptiles to decline and pass away. The climate did not materially change. Perhaps races grow old, and ripe for death, after living long on the earth. It seems as if their time was up; and the clumsy giants abdicated their reign, leaving dominion over the sea, the air, and the land to those animals adapted to take the places they were obliged to vacate.