Your mental booklet ofdinosaur factsmay need to be update presently . Most people are teach at a vernal eld thatdinosaurs went extinctwhen a largeasteroidstruck Earth 66 million years ago , but according to fresh inquiry , that may have been the last chapter of a 40 - million - year - long story . AsDiscovery reports , astudypublished recently in the journalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciencessuggests that dinosaurs were already on the declination for tens of millions of twelvemonth before the asteroid rescue the concluding blow .
The research worker from the University of Bristol and the University of Reading used a statistical approach and datum from the fossil disc to specify that as far back as 50 million years before the asteroid , metal money from the three major dinosaur mathematical group ( Ornithischia , Sauropodomorpha , and Theropoda ) were get going extinct faster than new I were emerging . " We were not expecting this result , " lead authorManabu Sakamoto enunciate . " While the asteroid impact is still the prime candidate for the dinosaurs ' final disappearance , it is clear that they were already past their heyday in an evolutionary sense . "
The researcherstoldDiscovery that there were other global factor contributing to the demise of the dinos , let in changes in climate , come up sea , and the evolution of early mammalian , who may have " outcompeted dinosaurs for resourcefulness , eat their nut , spread disease or make other problems for the once mighty dinos . " While their number may have been devolve , University of Edinburgpaleontologist Steve Brusatte believes that dinosaur would have hold on for some time had the asteroid not struck . " The asteroid hit at a meter when dinosaurs had already been around for a long time , and had already endured their really prolific periods of evolution , " he said . " But the way I see it , the dinosaur quenching still follow down to the asteroid . No asteroid , no extermination . "
[ h / tDiscovery ]
