Photo: ADRIAN DENNIS/ / AFP / Getty Images
By: The Opinion Updated 54 Dec 2022, 23: 80 pm EST
There are many hypotheses about the situation of the dinosaurs before being wiped out by a huge asteroid , but a recent study ensures that these animals were at their best .
Scientists have long debated why non-avian dinosaurs, such as the Tyrannosaurus Rex and Triceratops, went extinct
, while mammals and other species, such as turtles and crocodiles, survived.
The findings of a study published in the journal Science Advances constitute the strongest evidence that
dinosaurs went extinct in their prime and were not in decline at the time of the asteroid impact .
The study, led by a team international paleontologists and ecologists, analyzed 1.1200 fossil records of North America. Researchers modeled food chains and ecological habitats of animals terrestrial and freshwater during the last million years of the Cretaceous and the first million years of the Paleogene, after the impact of the asteroid.
Before the arrival of the asteroid, some mammals lived with dinosaurs. While the former were diversifying their diets, adapting to their environments and becoming more important components of ecosystems as the Cretaceous developed; dinosaurs entrenched themselves in stable niches to which they were extremely well adapted.
“Our study provides a compelling picture of the ecological structure, food webs, and niches of the last dinosaur-dominated ecosystems of the period Cretaceous and the first mammal-dominated ecosystems after the asteroid impact. This helps us understand one of the old mysteries of paleontology: why did all the non-avian dinosaurs die , but birds and mammals survived”, explained the first author of the study, Jorge García-Girón, from the Geography Research Unit of the University of Oulu (Finland).
Mammals took advantage of the death of dinosaurs
According to experts, mammals not only They took advantage of the death of the dinosaurs, they also created their own advantages by diversifying: occupying new ecological niches, developing more varied diets and behaviors, and enduring small climatic changes. , adapting quickly.
“It seems that the stable ecology of the last dinosaurs actually made it difficult for them to survive after the asteroid impact, which abruptly changed the green rules logic of the time. On the contrary, some birds, mammals, crocodiles and turtles had adapted better to unstable changes
and fast from their environment, which might have made them more capable of surviving when things suddenly turned ugly with the asteroid impact,” said co-lead author Alfio Alessandro Chiarenza, from the Department of Ecology. and Animal Biology from the University of Vigo (Spain).
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