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Dinosaurs were already in decline when the asteroid hit 66 million years ago, study claims - Daily Mail

Dinosaurs were already in decline when the asteroid hit 66 million years ago, study claims - Daily Mail

Dinosaurs were already in decline when the asteroid hit 66 million years ago, study claims - Daily Mail
Sep 21, 2022 1 min, 18 secs

They're often portrayed as going out with a 'bang' after an enormous asteroid hit Earth 66 million years ago.

Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences studied more than 1,000 fossilised dinosaur eggs and eggshells, and claim the animals were already in decline when the asteroid struck - possibly as a result of climate change.

'Our results support a long-term decline in global dinosaur biodiversity prior to 66 million years ago, which likely set the stage for the end-Cretaceous nonavian dinosaur mass extinction,' the team wrote in their study, published in PNAS.

They're often portrayed as going out with a 'bang' after an enormous asteroid hit Earth 66 million years ago.

Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences studied more than 1,000 fossilised dinosaur eggs and eggshells, and claim the animals were already in decline when the asteroid struck.

The team studied over 1,000 fossilised dinosaur eggs and eggshells from the Shanyang Basin in central China.

The team studied over 1,000 fossilised dinosaur eggs and eggshells from the Shanyang Basin in central China.

Their findings indicate there was a decline in dinosaur diversity across the two-million-year period, with the 1,000 egg fossils belonging to just three species – Macroolithus yaotunensis, Elongatoolithus elongatus, and Stromatoolithus pinglingensis.

The team studied over 1,000 fossilised dinosaur eggs and eggshells from the Shanyang Basin in central China

'This worldwide, long-term decline in dinosaur diversity through the end of the Cretaceous Period and sustained low number of dinosaur lineages for the last few million years may have resulted from known global climate fluctuations and massive volcanic eruptions, i.e., from the Deccan Traps in India,' they suggest

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