Hot Dinosaur Summer – The New York Times

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Dinosaurs, one of the most successful animals ever, ruling the planet for nearly 170 million years, may be in a 10-million-year decline at the time of apocalypse, according to research published this week.

a study He claims in the journal Nature Communications that extinction rates are increasing and that the evolution of new species began to decline 76 million years ago, before the “impact” of the earth. Chicxulub effect about 66 million years ago. The reason scientists suspected was a changing climate—cold temperatures caused a series of collapses and disasters. The newspaper is the latest article in a long-running debate about why dinosaurs died out. not all paleontologists agree that a steady fall continued when the space rock hit.

The research serves as a backdrop to assess this week’s heatwave in the Pacific Northwest and the precariousness of any animal’s time on Earth. Including how quickly a more adaptable creature can take over.

In the case of dinosaurs, turned out to be mammals. “Dinosaurs were often so large that they probably didn’t even know that small hairy mammals were in the bushes. But mammals began to increase in number of species before the dinosaurs disappeared, and then after the impact, they had a chance to build the new kind of ecosystems we see today,” he said. Institut des Sciences de l’Evolution de Montpellier.

Which makes me wonder: What animals can take over if we humans can’t adapt? Are they now trampled, unnoticed?

Other scientists this week discovered a previously unknown insect species In the coprolites, or fossilized feces, of dinosaur ancestors that lived more than 200 million years ago. Perhaps 200 million years from now, super-advanced insects will spend their days examining our coprolites for clues to our existence as their life cycle continues.



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