Long necks and bird-hipped dinosaurs

Three types of  dinosaurs

Diplodocus belongs to the herbivorous long-necked dinosaurs, the sauropods, which are related to the prosauropods, such as Plateosaurus. Together, sauropods and prosauropods form the group of sauropodomorph dinosaurs. These, in turn, together with the theropods, the lizard-hipped dinosaurs, and the ornithischians, the bird-hipped dinosaurs, represent the three main types of dinosaurs.

Theropods were probably the most successful dinosaurs of these three groups. Among them, were many fast, bipedal, carnivorous predators, such as Allosaurus. But also, little Coelophysis, the ancestor of all dinosaurs and the first representative of the powerful reptiles was a theropod. Tyrannosaurus, one of the most dangerous predators of all time, was also a theropod.

The dinosaurs died out at the end of the Cretaceous period. But some species of theropods had already evolved into birds beforehand and were the only ones to make the evolutionary leap to the present.