Grass is one of the most common plants in the world today. Whether it is the grass growing in your lawn or the countless acres of it in the grasslands of Africa, it seems like this plant is something that has always been around in one form or another. This, however, is not actually the case.

The history of grass is actually a lot briefer than you might think, though it is older than once believed. Up until relatively recently, it was believed that grass only dated back about 56 million years. While that is a long time, it is 10 million years after the asteroid impact that killed off the dinosaurs.

In 2005, however, there was a fossil of prehistoric excrement found that had bits of grass in it. When dated, it was found that this was from about 65 million years ago, pushing the age of grass back significantly. In an interview with Nature, Caroline Stromberg, a paleobotanist at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, talked about this finding:

“It was very unexpected. We will have to rewrite our understanding of its [grass] evolution. We may have to add grass to the dioramas of dinosaurs we see in museums.”

Then, more recently, a 2017 study conducted by Chinese paleontologists discovered small bits of grass-like epidermis as well as phytoliths stuck in the teeth of a hadrosaur. This finding came from 113 million years ago, pushing the existence of grass back significantly further.

Also, keep in mind that it is not at all likely that the bits of grass found in this dinosaur were from the very first pieces of grass ever to evolve. So, it can safely be assumed that grass is at least somewhat older than that.

The grass at this time, however, wasn’t the same as what we have today. It covered far less of the ground, and likely grew in much smaller patches. In an interview with IFLScience, palaeoartist and producer Jay Balamurugan talked about this fact. He helped to produce the show Walking With Dinosaurs on the BBC and specifically mentioned how having so little grass at the time was a challenge for the show:

“It was quite a lot of effort. We first had to figure out, okay, what sort of plants were around. Obviously, grass hadn’t evolved yet, or at least they were only just starting to really get going. Basically, a lot of the plants we know today weren’t around. Some of these landscapes, I think, we got fairly close to what it would have been like. We’re never going to be perfect. Those landscapes simply don’t exist anymore.”

So, if you picture large dinosaurs grazing on grass along the ground as a primary food source, that is almost certainly not the case. All of the herbivore dinosaurs likely had to find a way to consume the leaves of trees and bushes in order to survive.

Even those that were around recently enough to eat some grass wouldn’t have been able to find it in sufficient quantities for it to make up its entire diet.

If you think that’s impressive, check out this story about a “goldmine” of lithium that was found in the U.S. that could completely change the EV battery game.