An update of the great debates in paleontology has been made. According to a new study by Nature Communications, the diversity of dinosaur species has been declining for tens of millions of years since the Cretaceous. However, this does not necessarily mean that the way the dinosaurs walked, the asteroids or any asteroids have been proven. Fossil records show fewer dinosaur species millions of years ago, especially in the immediate lead of asteroid impacts than in North America. This observation has put an end to the heated debate. According to one explanation, dinosaurs broke out on the brink of extinction a million 66 million years ago, and the asteroid provided nothing but a final push.
Others have challenged the notion that the unexpected lack of species reflects the decline of fossil-conservation geology west of the North American inland sea. Extensive sampling indicates that species extinction was real, the authors of the new study claim, with more extinction than the formation of new species 76-66 million years ago. Lead author Dr Fabien Condamine of the Université de Montpellier said in a statement, “We looked at the six most abundant dinosaur families across the entire Cretaceous from 150 to 66 million years ago and saw that they all evolved and expanded and were clearly successful.”
“Then, a million 76 million years ago they showed a sudden recession. Their extinction rate increased and in some cases the rate of origin of new species decreased.” Condamine and co-authors claim that it allows one to simultaneously change the quality of fossil records from different times and other possible sources of error.
“We’ve also seen how this dinosaur ecosystems work and it’s clear that plant-eating species first disappear and when environmental conditions cause damage, it makes the latest dinosaur ecosystems unstable and responsible.” Co-author Dr. The authors believe that the main reason for this decline was climate change. Although there were plenty of ups and downs, the very long-term trend of the late Cretaceous occurred about 50,000 times more slowly than it does today and is on the opposite side. Gradually it was the heat-adapted dinosaurs apparently could not cope.
