Dinosaurs were on the up before asteroid downfall

2 years ago

www.ed.ac.uk

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Dinosaurs dominated the world right up until a deadly asteroid hit the earth, leading to their mass extinction, some 66 million years ago, a study reveals.

Small primitive mammals live alongside a Triceratops, pre-extinction. A softshell turtle climbs up a log, unaware that its freshwater surroundings will shelter it from the asteroid. Illustration © Henry Sharpe,.

Fresh insights into the habitats and food types that supported the dinosaurs suggest that their environments were robust and thriving, until the fateful day, at the end of the Cretaceous period.

Strong evidence

The findings provide the strongest evidence yet that the dinosaurs were struck down in their prime and were not in decline, at the time the asteroid hit.

Scientists have long debated why non-bird dinosaurs, including Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops, became extinct – whereas mammals and other species such as turtles and crocodiles survived.

The study, led by an international team of paleontologists and ecologists, analysed 1,600 fossil records from North America to find fresh answers.

Researchers modelled the food chains and ecological habitats of animals that lived on land and in freshwater during the last several million years of the Cretaceous and the first few million years of the Paleogene period, which followed the asteroid strike.

Diversification

Paleontologists have long known that many small mammals lived alongside the dinosaurs. But this research reveals that these mammals were diversifying their diets, adapting to their environments and becoming more important…

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