Toward the end of the Cretaceous—when T. rex and Triceratops were fighting in North America, carcharodontosaurs were hunting gigantic sauropods throughout the south, and a parade of dwarfs had colonized the European islands—dinosaurs seemed invincible. But like castles, like empires, and like genius noblemen with a flair for the dramatic, the great dynasties of evolution can also fall—sometimes when least expected.