The T. Rex Existed Closer in Time to Us Than to the Stegosaurus

Here's a dinosaur fact that reshapes how you think about deep time. The Tyrannosaurus Rex, which went extinct about 65 million years ago, is closer in geological time to us than it is to the Stegosaurus, which lived about 155 million years ago.

The gap between Stegosaurus and T. Rex (about 90 million years) is larger than the gap between T. Rex and today (65 million years). In other words, had a T. Rex lived in the same era as a Stegosaurus, it would have been looking at a creature as ancient to it as a Stegosaurus feels to us. The Age of Dinosaurs spans roughly 235 to 65 million years ago — encompassing enormous evolutionary change across three geological periods.