Scientists believe asteroids were not the main cause of the dinosaurs’ extinction

BEIJING – A new study claims that species dinosaur was on the verge of extinction when a giant asteroid hit the Earth and wiped out all the ancient animals.

When dinosaurs became extinct 66 million years ago, the number of animal species dropped dramatically, according to research conducted on dinosaur eggs in China.

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As reported by SCMP Friday (23/9/2022), a study from the Chinese Academy of Sciences was also published in the scientific journal PNAS.

Using dinosaur eggs found in the Shanyang Basin, scientists have created a timeline spanning two million years towards the end of the Cretaceous period, the last time dinosaurs lived.

The Central China Basin is home to around 1,000 fossil eggs, but on closer inspection, researchers found that only three species lived at the time.

This means that the diversity of dinosaur species has already decreased during the Cretaceous period.

“Our results show that dinosaur biodiversity was low during the last two million years of the Cretaceous. The data suggests a decline in dinosaur biodiversity millions of years before the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary,” the study authors said.

Furthermore, scientists also speculate that factors including climate change and vulcanic eruption The fire may have caused the dinosaur population to collapse.

(wb)

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