Dino diversity had a long pedigree

During this epoch of riotous biodiversity, flowering plants, social insects, butterflies, modern groups of lizards, mammals, and possibly birds, too, all emerged.

Some experts have suggested that dinosaurs were also part of the show, as so many weird fossils, such as duckbilled hadrosaurs, horned ceratopsians, pachycephalosaurs and other wonders, date from this time. But a new study, published on Wednesday in a British journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, says that dinosaurs were less than a sideshow in the DNA spectacular.

Researchers led by Graeme Lloyd of the University of Bristol, western England, devised a “supertree” of dinosaur evolution, patiently analysing how more than 450 species - about 70pc of the known finds - developed.

They conclude that the big evolutionary splurge for dinosaurs occurred in the Late Triassic, some 225m to 200m years ago. This was about 15-40m years after dinosaurs first emerged.