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What was it like 66 million years ago? Jane lived towards the end
of what we call the Cretaceous (kre-TAY-shus) Period. The Cretaceous
Period is the last of the three time periods that make up the Mesozoic Era.
Dinosaurs were around for over 160 million years, but the Cretaceous Period
ended with a massive extinction that ended their reign.
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Mesozoic Era (Triassic - Jurassic - Cretaceous)
248-65 million years ago
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Triassic Period
248-206 mya
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Jurassic Period
206-144 mya
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Cretaceous Period
144-65 mya
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What else lived in Jane's community? Pterosaurs would have been flying through
the air, mosasaurs swimming through the water, and ceratopsians and hadrosaurs
roaming the land. Mammals were very small creatures, the
largest being the size of a modern opossum. While modern-day Montana is rocky
and barren, back during the Cretaceous it would have been similar to the gulf
coast of the United States today. It was full of lush vegetation--giant ferns,
flowers, and trees. How do we know this? Fossils of these plants and animals
have been found in and around the same area that Jane was buried in. These
fossils give us clues to what Jane's world would have looked like.
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