I’ve spent much of my weekend writing about Jurassic World. I won’t rehash the details here – you can read those over at VICE – but it struck me how easy it is to talk about paleontology when everyone knows the animals you’re discussing. I don’t have to explain who Tyrannosaurus or Velociraptor were, and, from museums and movies, most everyone has some idea of what a dinosaur is.

But if Colin Trevorrow were directing Triassic World, my job would be a lot more difficult. With the exception of the first dinosaurs, and maybe the “armadillodiles“, most of the strange creatures that thrived between 252 and 200 million years ago don’t have common