Were dinosaurs endangered before asteroid-strike?
Recommended for Preparatory Grades
A recent study proposes dinosaur populations were already on the decline before the asteroid (also known as “Minor planets”) struck. It happened about 66 million years ago. Experts say that a huge asteroid crashing into Earth killed off the dinosaurs.
Scientists looked at 1,000 fossilised dinosaur eggs and eggshells from that part of central China for the study. The researchers came to the conclusion that there weren’t many different kinds of dinosaurs before they died out.
This happened at the end of the Cretaceous period, between 100 and 66 million years ago.
Key facts!
- In the research project, scientists made a timeline that covered about 2 million years at the end of the Cretaceous era.
- This was the time period right before the time when dinosaurs went extinct.
- Based on the data, they found that the number of different kinds of dinosaurs was going down.
- Researchers say that only three different kinds of dinosaurs are represented by the thousand fossilised dinosaur eggs.
- The study’s results show that two of the three types of dinosaur eggs come from oviraptors, which are dinosaurs without teeth, and the other comes from hadrosaurids, which ate plants.
- Scientists have found that tyrannosaurs and sauropods lived in the area between about 66.4 million and 68.2 million years ago.
- Researchers say that there weren’t many kinds of dinosaurs in central China in the last two million years before the mass extinction.
- The way they looked at the data led them to this conclusion.
- Scientists say that the results show that the number of dinosaurs around the world was going down before the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, which is what killed them off.
Watch a video
A view of the Jurassic Park Ride at Universal Studios from the perspective of YouTube user “JC Entertainment.”
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