New Study: Dinosaurs Already Extinct Before Asteroid Hit Earth | Abroad

The study shows that dinosaurs were already in oppression 10 million years before the impact of the asteroid on what is now Mexcio. The researchers analyzed 1,600 fossils of 247 different dinosaur species. In the end, one could calculate the diversity and extinction rates of six dinosaur families.

“We looked at the six largest families in the entire era that ran from 150 to 66 million years ago. There we saw that all six of them actually did quite well,” says Fabien Condamine of the Institut des Sciences de l’Evolution in Montpelllier. “But 76 million years ago there was a reversal: more species became extinct and new species in some cases no longer appeared.”

Become extinct

The researchers used computer models to arrive at the most likely results. “In the analyses, we examined several causes for the decline of the dinosaurs,” said Mike Benton, co-author of the study. “Obviously there were two big factors. First, the climate became noticeably cooler, which made life more difficult for the dinosaurs because they were used to heat. This was followed by a quiet decline in herbivores, making ecosystems more unstable and affecting other dinosaur species. The longest-lived species were the most susceptible to extinction, possibly because they were unable to adapt to the new conditions.”

–