Apex predators of the Mesozoic
Four ways to look at the same question: who sat at the top of the food chain, where, and when, across the age of dinosaurs?
Narrative timeline
A reading of the Mesozoic as a sequence of apex regimes. Turnover events, co-existences, rises and extinctions, top to bottom from the Triassic to K-Pg.
Paleogeography & ranges
Paleogeographic map with apex markers per continent and ocean (period selector + Mollweide inset). Below it, every species as a stratigraphic bar grouped by region.
Family chart
Time-calibrated chart of apex-predator families. Each bar spans the earliest-to-latest apex representative. Inspired by Zanno & Makovicky (2013).
Diversity curves
Stacked curves of how many apex species of each clade were alive through time. Reads the changing of the guard as a single picture.
Comparison by region
Four figures in the same visual format showing how the apex-predator succession varied by continent: North America, South America, Asia and Africa. Inspired by Zanno & Makovicky (2013).
Teeth that tell stories
What the teeth of nine predators reveal about how they hunted: T-Rex, Spinosaurus, Carcharodontosaurus, Giganotosaurus, Allosaurus, Velociraptor, Baryonyx, Majungasaurus, Therizinosaurus and Carnotaurus. Compared with photos of real fossils.