Dinosaurs had been around on Earth for about 165 million years compared to Homo sapiens that have only existed for about 200,000 years. In some perspective, the dinosaurs were a more significant part of Earth's history than we ever have been so far. They were the dominant clade on the planet for over three major time periods and many individual species of them existed for millions of years themselves, and their descendants still exist to this very day.

I never really see anyone talk about just how long dinosaurs ruled the Earth for compared to our measly existence. It really is just due to the most obscene chance that we exist… The kings of the world wiped out by some random rock hurtling through space that happened to hit our tiny planet. I can’t help but wonder how different things would be today had they survived.

edit: yeah, it really was just a shower thought. People have been quick to point out how meaningless the term ‘dinosaur’ is in this comparison

I just googled when the first Australopithecus appeared on earth and apparently it is estimated to be 4 million years ago. How come the Earth environment led us to evolve so "quickly" (relatively speaking) but during this ~100 mi years that the dinosaurs were around never did anything of this sort to them?