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November 18, 2020 03:24 pm

Dinosaurs Were Not on the Way Out Before Asteroid Hit, Study Claims

New analysis has refuted the claim that dinosaurs were in decline at the time of their extinction. If an asteroid had not hit Earth 66m years ago, dinosaurs might have continued to dominate the planet, according to new research. From a report: A team from the University of Bath and the UK National History Museum has published a study to Royal Society Open Science saying that, contrary to some scientific thinking, dinosaurs were not in a state of decline prior to the mass extinction event. The team collected a set of different dinosaur family trees and used statistical modelling to assess if each of the main dinosaur groups was still able to produce new species at this time. Prior to the asteroid impact during the Late Cretaceous period, dinosaurs were globally widespread and were the dominant form of animal of most terrestrial ecosystems. "Previous studies done by others have used various methods to draw the conclusion that dinosaurs would have died out anyway, as they were in decline towards the end of the Cretaceous period," said first author of the study, Joe Bonsor. "However, we show that if you expand the dataset to include more recent dinosaur family trees and a broader set of dinosaur types, the results don't actually all point to this conclusion -- in fact, only about half of them do." Commenting on the new study, Richard Dawkins tweeted, "An impact as catastrophic as this will happen again. We don't know when. Using existing science, we could develop the technology to detect, intercept, and divert or destroy a large incoming asteroid. No other species could do it. It's our responsibility."

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