Map through time
Dinosaurs through time
Move through the Age of Dinosaurs to see which genera's fossils come from rocks of each age, and where they lay on the continents of the time.
833 of the 1,572 genera on the map, plus Archaeopteryx (bird line, outside the count)
68 million years ago
Maastrichtian · Late Cretaceous · Cretaceous
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How to read it
Reading the map
We only know where fossils survived and were found. North America, Europe and China have been searched far more than Africa, South America or Antarctica, so empty land often means "not yet searched".
A dot shows whenever your moment falls inside its rock's age window. Hollow dots come from windows wider than 5 million years, so the animal may have lived somewhat earlier or later.
"Then" shows land and seas reconstructed by the PALEOMAP project for the nearest available time (maps every 5 to 15 million years), with each site moved to where it lay. These are reconstructions: positions can be out by hundreds of kilometres, and other models differ.
Ancient coastlines show each stage's seas at their greatest extent. Many dinosaurs lived on low coastal plains, so some sites sit just offshore, in shallow sea.
Coverage
The map shows the 833 genera Omnisaura covers so far, out of the 1,572 the Paleobiology Database recognises, plus Archaeopteryx (bird line, outside the count), using the same fossil records each genus's age is calculated from.
Fossil finds and ages from the Paleobiology Database, licensed CC BY 4.0. Time scale: International Chronostratigraphic Chart v2024/12, via the Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0). Ancient positions computed by the Paleobiology Database with the PALEOMAP plate model (C. R. Scotese). Ancient coastlines from PaleoMAP PaleoCoastlines (Kocsis and Scotese 2021, Earth-Science Reviews 213: 103463), licensed CC BY 4.0. Present-day coastlines from Natural Earth (public domain). Updated 2026-10-12.