Between 245 and 66 million years ago, dinosaurs ruled the Earth. Or so the saying goes. Avian dinosaurs are still with us in their glorious, feathery abundance, and even the varied, bizarre non-avian dinosaurs were not so monstrous that they went unchallenged. We celebrate dinosaurs for their apparent ferocity and power, but we often forget that they were part of prehistoric ecosystems that did not grant them the special status our imagination so often does. Case in point – some hapless dinosaurs wound up as meals for ancient crocs. We know because of mangled bones.

Not every dinosaur that ever lived made it into the fossil record. Dinosaur bodies had to wind up in environments where their remains could be buried.