Like the cavemen on the Geico commercials, dinosaurs often get a bad rap. Any service or product that has gone out of favor or become obsolete is labeled "a dinosaur."
Yet, dinosaurs, as a group, ruled the earth for 160 million years and were remarkably diverse and successful. Historically portrayed as lumbering, dim-witted, cold-blooded brutes, we now know that they were warm-blooded creatures that had more in common with today's birds than with prehistoric reptiles. And while most species died out after the Chicxulub asteroid strike, 65 million years ago, others gave rise to avian lineages of the Cenozoic Era.
By comparison, man has roamed this planet for only 125,000 years. Who are we to view the dinosaurs as failed creatures?
