What kind of living things were on earth before the dinosaurs?
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Evolution is only a theory. The theory states that more complex life forms evolved from more simple life forms. A brontosaurus, according to the theory, would evolve from a much smaller plant eater with a much smaller neck. I don't know the exact name of the species, but I can get that information for you though it goes beyond the scope of this question.\n\nThere are bones of apelike animals that would have had brains equal in size to our own, but bone structure vastly different than human beings bones. Did modern humans wipe out intelligent apes or was that us? The theory of evolution has flaws like the Big Bang theory and many other scientific theories. The theory of evolution is far from perfect which is why you can't seem to make sense of it.\n\nWhat is missing from the theory is the so-called "missing link." If a giraffe evolved a longer neck over millions of years why are there no bones of these intermediary stages of giraffes with slightly longer necks? Just its ancestor and the modern animal.
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Actually, animals preceded plants by a long way-The oxygen first produced was made by cyanobacteria and algae, not plants.  Plants did precede animals onto land, however.  Short answer, we evolved side-by-side for a very short period of time, prior to the formation of choroplasts some billion years ago or so, and after that have evolved separately.
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kooolcha is right, the first forms of life on Earth were most likely bacteria.  They were probably prokaryotic cells (eukaryotes are thought to have evolved from several prokaryotes joining together, organelles are thought to be evidence of this) that lacked internal structures, including the nucleus.
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Where I live now would have been part of a fore arc-subduction complex. At that time the western coast of the area that is now the United States was near the California-Arizona border, and the California-Nevada border. The Sierra Nevada was just starting to rise. A number of islands existed off the west coast that later became part of the North American plate. \n\nThe entire area was just above the equator. The environment was a desert biome. Worldwide, temperatures were warmer than they are today. There were no icecaps on the planet.  The plants that lived in what is now Southern California were dry-adapted (xeromorphic) to live in the hot arid to semi-arid environment.  Some conifers, trees with veined lobed leaves (Ginkophytes), rarely ferns, cycadophytes which look like a palm tree were all likely found growing in microclimates near the coast where there was more rainfall. The most impressive forms of animal life would have been several species of suaropods, which fed on conifers, ginkos and cyads. These were the dinosaurs with long necks and tails. Stegosaurus might have been feeding in the vegetation, and a bipedal carnivore called Ornitholestes may have preyed on them. \n\nSea life would have been abundant, and marine crocodiles may have been common. Large ichthyosaurs (marine reptiles) that reached 2-4 meters made swimming hazardous. Plesiosaurs were also likely to be present in coastal waters and may have preyed on the crocs. Sharks were abundant.  Fish might have been of a group known as bony fish, of which the lungfish and coelacanth are modern survivors. In the air Rhamphorhynchus, a flying reptile probably caught fish like pelicans do today. In shallow sea waters there were some strange looking bivalves known as Diceratids that often built shoals like modern day oysters do. Sea urchins, starfish, and crinoids lived in the shallow and shelf waters. Dragonflies and damselflies were present; also ants, butterflies, and grasshoppers lived in the vegetated areas. \n\n\nTo see a paleogeographic map go here and scroll down to the 150 Ma plate:\nhttp://jan.ucc.nau.edu/rcb7/jurpaleo.html\nHere is another map:\nhttp://jan.ucc.nau.edu/rcb7/150NAt.jpg\nBiome map for Late Jurassic:\nhttp://pgap.uchicago.edu/data-models.html\nPaper describing climate of Late Jurassic:\nhttp://www.geo.arizona.edu/~rees/2004-1.pdf
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The egg. Dinosaurs lived before birds and they layed eggs. Therefore the egg came before the chicken. :)
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try wikipedia, search fossils
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I believe it is about 6,000 years old, based on a plain sense reading of the Scriptures alone.  The Bible also explains dinosaurs very well. Dinosaurs are land animals. Land animals were created on Day 6, thus dinosaurs were created on the same day as Man, and Man walked with dinosaurs originally. The dinosaurs, like all the others, were vegetarian in their diet. There was no death before the fall, and all ate plants and fruits. The sin of Adam changed many things, and perhaps carnivory began after the fall. Two of each kind of dinosaur went up the Ark (the rest died in the flood waters), they left the Ark, and many went extinct like any other animal that has gone extinct. We have stories and legends of men dueling and killing monsters or dragons which are most likely based on the encounters with surviving dinosaurs. You won’t find the word “dinosaur” in our Bibles because it was a word invented in 1842, after the Bible was translated into English. Instead we have words like Behemoth and Leviathan which are descrined in detail in Job. And when dinosaur bones are being dug up, there are no tell tale labels about how old they are. In fact, scientists have found red blood cells and muscle tissue when they cut opened the T-Rex fossils. The implication of this finding is that the fossils aren’t millions of years old.
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Birds are the direct descendents of dinosaurs.  Many scientists will say they *are* dinosaurs.  As such, they are alive, so dinosaurs are alive.\n\nWhile it remains possible that some dinosaurs proper have survived, it is extremely unlikely at this point.  There is no physical evidence for it.\n\nYour second question is difficult to answer.  Are there prehistoric creatures that have survived?  Sure!  Pretty much every species on earth today (even humans!) is older than history, that makes it prehistoric!  Defining prehistoric any other way would essentially make prehistoric mean "not surviving today", so the answer would be no.\n\nWhat you mean, of course, is creatures to have survived from truly ancient times, such as from the Mesozoic (age of dinosaurs) or older, but again, it's difficult to answer.  There probably aren't any actual species that old, but it's difficult to tell if something in the fossil record is actually the same species as something alive today.  Consider, lions and tigers look and act very different alive and are certainly two different species, but it is very difficult to tell their skeletons apart.\n\nA lot of so-called "living fossils" really aren't.  For instance, we have no fossils of the Coelacanth.  It's closest relatives in the fossil record are in another family (as different as cats and dogs).  Cockroaches are often said to have been unchanged for millions of years, but it's not the case as the fossil record records them evolving continuously.  The first fossil cockroaches had three pairs of wings!\n\nBut some things have survived nearly unchanged for millions of years.  Six-gill and Port Jackson sharks are very much like they were in the age of dinosaurs.  The Tuatara is surprisingly like it's Mesozoic relatives.\n\nBut the king of living fossils is the Lingula brachiopod.  It looks like a clam and lives by filter feeding, but don't let it's calm appearance fool you.  These little guys are survivors.  They've been living in Earth's oceans almost unchanged for 550 million years!  That's almost as long as we have animal fossils at all!  Dinosaurs are hardly teenagers by comparison!\n\nAddenda:  The Komodo Dragon is NOT believed to be a dinosaur, at least not by scientists.  It is just a large monitor lizard.  Dinosaurs are not lizards, being classed among the Archosaurs with the crocodiles, pterosaurs and birds.
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About 2 billion years ago.\n\nVery little. We are reasonably sure that chloroplasts and mitochondria were bacteria before they joined the collective.
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Dinosaurs were vertebrate animals that dominated the terrestrial ecosystem for over 160 million years, first appearing approximately 230 million years ago. At the end of the Cretaceous period 65 million years ago, dinosaurs suffered a catastrophic extinction, which ended their dominance on land. Modern birds are considered to be the direct descendants of theropod dinosaurs.
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Bacteria appeared on earth between 3.4 and 4 billion years ago. Precambrian evidence of filamentous bacteria-like structures, found making up fossilized sediments called stromalites, has been discovered in Australia and southern Africa. These fossils date back between 3.4 and 3.5 billion years old. Environmental conditions of earth 4 billion years ago were much different than those of today. It has been theorized that the atmosphere was a reducing atmosphere with intense lightning, tremendous volcanic activity, very little oxygen, intense ultraviolet radiation, and meteorite bombardment. These conditions made it impossible for any type of aerobic life to exist. The first cells may have originated by chemical evolution in an anaerobic environment.\n\nAbiotic Synthesis Theory of Life: A.I.Oparin postulated, in the 1920's, that primitive earth with its reducing atmosphere favored chemical reactions that produced simple monomers that eventually formed complex organic compounds necessary for life. Stanley Miller and Harold Urey tested this hypothesis by building an apparatus to simulate the conditions of the earth at that time.\nTheir experiments produced 20 amino acids and other organic compounds including: ATP, lipids, some sugars, and the bases of RNA and DNA. The main problem of organic synthesis is how did these molecules develop without the aid of enzymes to speed up the reactions? Sidney Fox, of the University of Miami, dripped a dilute solution of organic monomers onto hot sand, clay , and rock. The water vaporized and left behind polypeptides he called proteinoids. Clay was abundant in prebiotic earth. Clay has the ability to act as a substrate for this type of chemical reaction. The charged sites on the clay attracted monomers in such concentrations to bring them into close proximity for chemical binding. Once these organic compounds were produced, aggregates of these proteinoids self-assembled into small spheres called protobionts. These small spheres were capable of osmotic swelling and shrinking and even able to produce a membrane potential.\n\nRNA the first Genetic Material: Evidence to support the idea that RNA was the first genetic material includes: short polymers of self-replicating RNA have been abiotically produced in a test tube without enzymes. RNA has the ability to act as a catalyst to help make mRNA, tRNA or rRNA. The RNA folding is unique depending on its sequence. This along with mutations, creates a variety of closely related molecules. Through chance this self-replicating material was captured by the protobionts and the entire structure developed under the guide of natural selection.\n\nOther Origin Theories:\n\nPanspermia. Extraterrestrial organic compounds located on the surface of meteorites could well have contributed to the pool of material found on prebiotic earth. Modern meteorites have given up specimens of simple organic compounds such as amino acids.\n\nSome researchers believe that life began on the sea floor away from the harsh surface environments. The discovery of deep sea vents showed the scientific community that the materials needed for life to begin were present away from the harsh surface.\n\nJulius Rebek produced a simple organic molecule in 1991 that served as a template for self-replication. This discovery suggests that RNA was too complex to have come first and a much simpler self-replicating molecule preceded it.
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Depends on what period during the Precambrian.  \n\nVery early in the Precambrian, the atmosphere would have been unbreathable.  It also would have been unsurvivably hot.\n\nLater, it would have poured rain constantly for about a million years or so just after the Earth cooled enough for water vapour to become liquid water, hit the hot Earth and get vapourized again.\n\nBut after live began to evolve, and photosynthesis created the oxygen atmosphere we know and love today, it probably would have been quite nice to visit.\n\nAs long as you weren't there on one of the occasions when a giant asteroid hit the Earth (about every 100 million or so), or during one of the period ice ages (one ice age about 800 million years ago appears to have covered the entire planet in ice - although eccentricities in the Earth's orbit may have created a rotating seasonal hole of open water near the Equator).\n\nThe biggest dangers would have been boredom and starvation.\n\nOn land there would be no life at all for several hundred million years at least.  Not even lichen or moss.  No plants, no insects, nothing.  Same with the oceans.  Maybe a few mats of floating algae and some squiggly worms in the mud.  Nothing else, not even a crab or jellyfish.  Certainly nothing that could eat you.\n\nBecause there was no life on land, the soils would have been very very poor in organic content.  Any plants you brought with you would have difficulty growing unless you brought plenty of fertilizer and nutrients, so I hope you brought lots of Twinkies.\n\nSome of the scenery would no doubt be spectacular.  Huge expanses of open terrain without a single plant, bird or bug to make a peep.\n\nSo a very nice to place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there.
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Fossils (from Latin fossus, literally "having been dug up") are the mineralized or otherwise preserved remains or traces (such as footprints) of animals, plants, and other organisms. The totality of fossils and their placement in fossiliferous (fossil-containing) rock formations and sedimentary layers (strata) is known as the fossil record. The study of fossils is called paleontology.\n\nFossilization is actually a rare occurrence because most components of formerly-living things tend to decompose relatively quickly following death. In order for an organism to be fossilized, the remains normally need to be covered by sediment as soon as possible. However there are exceptions to this, such as if an organism becomes petrified or comes to rest in an anoxic (oxygen-free) environment such as at the bottom of a lake. There are several different types of fossils and fossilization processes.\n\nFossils usually consist of traces of the remains of the organism itself. However, fossils may also consist of the marks left behind by the organism while it was alive, such as the footprint or feces of a dinosaur or reptile. These types of fossil are called trace fossils, as opposed to body fossils. Finally, past life leaves some evidences that cannot be seen but can be detected in the form of chemical signals; these are known as chemical fossils (for lack of a better term).\n\n\nThe oldest known structured fossils are most likely stromatolites. Now understood to be formed by the entrapment of minerals by mucous-like sheets of cyanobacteria, the oldest of these formations dates from 3.5 billion years ago. Even older deposits (3.8 billion years old) of heavy carbon that are indicative of even earlier life are currently proposed as the remains of the earliest known life on Earth.\n\nRarity of fossils\n\nBecause fossilization requires the relatively quick preservation of bodily remains, fossils are relatively rare. Due to the combined effect of taphonomic processes and simple mathematical chance, fossilization tends to favor organisms with hard body parts, those that were widespread, and those that lived for a long time. On the other hand, it is very unusual to find fossils of small, soft bodied, geographically restricted and geologically ephemeral organisms, because of their relative rarity and low likelihood of preservation.\n[edit]\n\nPermineralization\nA permineralized trilobite, Asaphus kowalewskii\nEnlarge\nA permineralized trilobite, Asaphus kowalewskii\n\nPermineralization consists of organic remains being to some degree impregnated by minerals derived from the surrounding sediments or waters. For permineralization to occur, the organism must become covered by sediment soon after death or soon after the initial decaying process. The degree to which the remains are decayed when covered determines the later details of the fossil. Some fossils consist only of skeletal remains or teeth; other fossils contain traces of skin, feathers or even soft tissues. Once covered with sediment, these layers slowly become compacted and cemented into rock, and the organic remains are slowly replaced with hard minerals. This is a form of diagenesis.\n[edit]\n\nReplacement and compression fossils\n\nIn some cases the original remains of the organism have been completely dissolved or otherwise destroyed. When all that is left is an organism-shaped hole in the rock, it is called a mould fossil or typolite. If this hole is later filled with other minerals, it is called a cast fossil and is considered a replacement fossil since the original materials have been completely replaced by new, unrelated ones. In some cases replacement occurs so gradually and at such fine scales that no "hole" in the rock can ever be discerned and microstructural features are preserved despite the total loss of original material.\n\nCompression fossils such as those of fossil ferns are the result of chemical reduction of the complex organic molecules composing the org
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sure they were, this is clear because of the evidence we've got from geology. the bones we've found don't lie. but something you should notice, and that is dinosaurs were not all huge wild animals, they were just a kind of animals, including all sizes and all behaviours. also it is believed that some of the animals living nowadays are the children of ancient dinasaurs.
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There were eggs long before chickens.\n\nDinosaurs laid eggs, for example, and birds evolved from dinosaurs.\n\nGuess what, a chicken is a bird.\n\nWhatever bird chickens evolved from laid eggs, so wherever you draw the line in the sand and say "here was the first chicken", well, that chicken had a mother who laid the egg.\n\nEggs came before chickens.
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There is an obvious answer: the egg. All birds evolved from avian (flying) dinosaurs. They laid eggs. The egg came first (although not necessarily the chicken egg).
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The oldest animal fossils are called Vernanimalcula and are aged at 600 million years.  These are the first organisms discovered that exhibit true animal characteristics.  I don't think bacteria count as an animal....