Were there dinosaurs in the Cambrian?

No. Dinosaurs appeared about 300 million years after the Cambrian ended. Cambrian life was entirely marine and included no vertebrates recognizable today.

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Cambrian Period

538-485 million years ago

The Cambrian Period is famous for the Cambrian Explosion, an extraordinary burst of evolution where almost all major animal body plans appeared within a geologically short time. This was hundreds of millions of years before dinosaurs. Bizarre creatures like Anomalocaris and Hallucigenia filled the seas.

Fun Facts

✓The Cambrian Explosion, about 538 million years ago, saw most major animal body plans appear within a few million years.
✓Eyes evolved independently multiple times during the Cambrian, giving many animals a new way to sense the world.
✓The Burgess Shale in Canada preserves extraordinary Cambrian fossils with soft tissue detail.
✓There were no land animals during the Cambrian. Life was entirely in the oceans.

Questions About the Cambrian

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