Some dinosaurs were already dying out before asteroid impact
Baku, May 4 (AZERTAC). An asteroid impact may have ended the reign of the dinosaurs here on Earth about 65 million years ago, but new evidence suggests many of the large, plant-eating dinosaurs were already dying out during the last 12 million years of the Cretaceous period.
The findings, by an international team of US and German scientists, do not dispute the mass extinction that killed off all the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous era. They do, however, suggest that at least some of the great lizard species were on their way out beforehand.
The study, led by the American Museum of Natural History and published Tuesday May 1 in the journal Nature Communications, suggests that large-bodied herbivores, like triceratops, were in slow decline well before the Cretaceous extinction event, while their medium-sized relatives and meat-eating rivals were flourishing.
It was a hotly debated topic for years - whether dinosaurs were struck down in their prime or whether they were already on a steady path toward extinction. Now, after extensive research, scientists think they know what really happened.
“A lot of the time people think of the dinosaurs going extinct: `oh, you know, an asteroid did it … the dinosaurs were doing just fine, an asteroid came along and killed them all off`,” lead author Steve Brusatte, a Columbia University graduate student affiliated with the Museum of Natural History, told the AFP news agency.
“We found that it was probably much more complex than that, and maybe not the sudden catastrophe that is often portrayed,” he said. “I think our study highlights the fact that we still have a long way to go until we fully understand the extinction of the dinosaurs,” Brusatte told Jennifer Viegas of Discovery News.
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