How to Use Cretaceous in a Sentence

Cretaceous

adjective
Definition of Cretaceousnext
  • The sparkle comes from fragments of fossilized clams and snails that lived and died in Cretaceous ponds and lakes.
    — Kristi Curry Rogers, Scientific American, 1 Feb. 2024
  • The king of the dinosaurs may have not been the only Cretaceous carnivore to prey on its own kin.
    — Alex Orlando, Discover Magazine, 1 May 2024
  • The trouble was the area these fossils were found in would have been inland in the Late Cretaceous period.
    — Joshua Rapp Learn, Discover Magazine, 15 July 2024
  • The large theropod roamed what is now known as the northern part of Africa during the Cretaceous period.
    — Elizabeth Gamillo, Discover Magazine, 27 Feb. 2024
  • New Orleans to the Cretaceous Era and beyond, as they become locked in a battle of wills that spans millions of years.
    — Borys Kit, The Hollywood Reporter, 14 Sep. 2022
  • The dinosaur was part of the Cretaceous period, the last era of the dinosaurs, and lived between 97 million and 94 million years ago.
    — Saleen Martin, USA TODAY, 17 Aug. 2022
  • This Cretaceous beast was a large carnivore found in Africa.
    — Sara Novak, Discover Magazine, 8 June 2023
  • Not all experts are convinced this means Cretaceous ants, too, chatted via pheromones.
    — science.org, 3 July 2024
  • The Cretaceous period is known for its prehistoric titans like the Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops — and as the last dinosaur age.
    — Irene Wright, Miami Herald, 18 July 2024
  • The clay was in between rocks from the Cretaceous and Paleogeneperiods and dates from the time the dinosaurs disappeared.
    — Hans Sues, Discover Magazine, 15 Aug. 2024
  • The leatherback family has been on earth since the Cretaceous period, 110 million years ago, but much is still unknown about these turtles and their habits.
    — Nina Burleigh, Smithsonian Magazine, 4 Jan. 2024
  • Though grass has been around since the late Cretaceous period, it’s only been widespread for about twenty-five million years.
    — Rivka Galchen, The New Yorker, 6 Nov. 2023
  • Between the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, during the last half of the age of the dinosaurs, pterosaurs evolved from small bird-sized flying reptiles to massive creatures.
    — Matt Hrodey, Discover Magazine, 17 Aug. 2023
  • Skeletons had been found in the area, especially Spinosaurus, from the late Cretaceous period.
    — Bethany Brookshire, Scientific American, 27 June 2024
  • So in the case of pelagornithids, this particular role would be filled by flying reptiles in the Cretaceous period.
    — Flora Lichtman, Scientific American, 31 May 2023
  • Like birds, mammals are another elusive group in the Late Cretaceous fossil record.
    — Kristi Curry Rogers, Scientific American, 1 Feb. 2024
  • This is quite unusual as most dinosaurs that died in the Jurassic or Cretaceous periods are found without their skull.
    — Rachel Cormack, Robb Report, 30 Mar. 2023
  • The ichthyosaur is a sea-dwelling dinosaur that was reportedly found during both the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.
    — Joshua Hawkins, BGR, 2 Jan. 2023
  • The study claims that bees arose in arid regions of western Gondwana during the early Cretaceous period, and as new continents formed, the insects went with them.
    — Tim Newcomb, Popular Mechanics, 1 Aug. 2023
  • The early Cretaceous marks the period when some dinosaurs were evolving into birds.
    — Paul Smaglik, Discover Magazine, 21 May 2024
  • These birds lived during the early Cretaceous period some 125 million years ago, in what is now eastern China.
    — science.org, 3 July 2024
  • One specimen trapped in Cretaceous amber dates to 100 million years old and reveals armored spikes along its trunk segments.
    — Elizabeth Gamillo, Discover Magazine, 2 Oct. 2023
  • The End-Cretaceous mass extinction event 65.5 million years claimed nearly all the dinosaurs, including the iconic T. rex and Triceratops.
    — Alex Orlando, Discover Magazine, 30 Mar. 2023
  • Although there is some idea of what happened to their teeth, the fate of the diverse species of Cretaceous monotremes, which were not only toothy but mostly larger than the modern platypus and echidna, remains unknown.
    — Elizabeth Rayne, Ars Technica, 7 June 2024
  • That means Cretaceous dinosaurs experienced a planet with 372 days in each year.
    — Evan Bush, NBC News, 27 Mar. 2024
  • But these bones predate T. rex and likely belonged to an Acrocanthosaurus, the largest theropod in the Early Cretaceous period.
    — Matt Hrodey, Discover Magazine, 25 July 2023
  • Lebanese amber is rich in preserved fossils, called inclusions, and dates to around 125 million years in the early Cretaceous period.
    — Kate Golembiewski, New York Times, 4 Dec. 2023
  • Most Cretaceous flower fossils are less than a centimeter across.
    — Ben Crair, The New Yorker, 2 Jan. 2023
  • Triceratops is a quadrupedal dinosaur of the ceratopsian family – herbivores from the Cretaceous period with a bony frill and distinct beaklike bone.
    — Kelly Santana Banks, Discover Magazine, 22 Apr. 2023
  • The researchers then checked various fossils for the chemical markers of the pigment and found them in a 10-million-year-old frog, the Cretaceous bird Confuciusornis and the dinosaur Sinornithosaurus.
    — Riley Black, Scientific American, 14 Dec. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'Cretaceous.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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