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Were dinosaurs going extinct before the asteroid hit Earth?
2025-06-16 18:51:02 / MISTERE&KURIOZITETE
Life on planet Earth is a fragile thing . All it takes is a celestial body to hit it , and the most dominant group of animals on our planet disappears. But if it were n't for a 10- kilometer - wide asteroid that crashed into Earth about 66 million years ago, dinosaurs might have continued to dominate our globe , a new study suggests .
As for mammals as a young man , we might never have had the chance to rise to the status we have. The results of the latest study fuel a long-standing debate about the extinction of the dinosaurs . While the Chicxulub asteroid and its aftermath — blocking the Sun ’s rays and cooling the climate — are generally considered the leading candidates for the mass extinction event during the Cretaceous Period , some more recent evidence suggests that certain species of dinosaurs were already going extinct tens of millions of years before that moment .
" Previous studies by others have used different methods to conclude that dinosaurs would have died out anyway , as their numbers were declining towards the end of the Cretaceous Period , " says paleontologist Joe Bonsor of the University of Bath , UK .
Instead of counting the number of dinosaur species present at the time using fossil records, the team used statistical methods to analyze the rate of species within dinosaur families .
By analyzing thousands of combinations of family trees in 12 dinosaur families , the researchers tested whether species diversity was slowing down , staying the same , or declining slightly faster than before the asteroid impact .
And of the 2,727 special models, only 518 (less than 20 percent) clearly showed their significant extinction before the asteroid impact . So the team says it is skeptical of the theory of their simultaneous extinction , suggesting that dinosaur diversity would have remained high throughout the Late Cretaceous , even though species diversity varied between branches .
" Our current data does not show that all dinosaurs were going extinct . In fact , some groups such as hadrosaurs and ceratopsians were thriving , and there is no evidence to suggest that they would have died out 66 million years ago if the impact had not occurred , " Bonsor points out .
The results of this study are supported by another recent study, which found that habitats for North American dinosaurs did not disappear during the Late Cretaceous. “ We may never know the true extent of the Mesozoic dinosaur extinction . ”
But an increased focus on filling gaps in the fossil record will be the main way in which paleontologists will continue to build a more accurate picture of the diversity of ancient dinosaurs , the researchers emphasize./ Bota.al
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