Why did only dinosaurs go extinct?

When an asteroid or comet slammed into Earth about 66 million years ago, most of our planet's species were wiped out in a mass extinction—including entire groups such as the nonavian dinosaurs, marine reptiles such as mosasaurs, and their flying kin the pterosaurs.
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Why did dinosaurs go extinct but not other animals?

It is believed that due to the combination of slow incubation and the considerable resources needed to reach adult size, the dinosaurs would have been at a distinct disadvantage compared to other animals that survived the asteroid that struck Earth 66 million years ago.
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Why did dinosaurs go extinct but not birds?

Ancient birds had brains more closely resembling those of dinosaurs rather than the birds of modern birds. The ancestors of modern birds likely later developed a larger cerebrum, helping them survive the mass extinction. Credit: Science Advances.
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Why did the dinosaurs die but not mammals?

"Even if large herbivorous dinosaurs had managed to survive the initial meteor strike, they would have had nothing to eat," he explains, "because most of the earth's above-ground plant material had been destroyed." Mammals, in contrast, could eat insects and aquatic plants, which were relatively abundant after the ...
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Did only dinosaurs go extinct?

Some groups of mammals did survive, but others were either wiped out or so reduced in diversity that, like the dinosaurs, they fell into extinction. Mass extinctions are the greatest murder mysteries ever known.
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Why the Dinosaurs’ Extinction is an Ongoing Puzzle | Nat Geo Explores



How did Sharks survive the dinosaur extinction?

The finding published in the journal PLOS Biology also suggested that some shark species were in decline before the asteroid hit but began to thrive after it due to their ability to repair DNA damage.
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What if dinosaurs were still alive?

We wouldn't have recognized them

They, too, would have continued to adapt. “There might even be new groups of dinosaurs that didn't exist during the Mesozoic era. The present Earth wouldn't be a hodgepodge of old favorites, but an entirely different mix of unknown dinosaurs,” wrote Switek.
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How did crocodiles survive dinosaur extinction?

Crocodiles survived the asteroid strike that wiped out the dinosaurs thanks to their 'versatile' and 'efficient' body shape, that allowed them to cope with the enormous environmental changes triggered by the impact, according to new research. Crocodiles can thrive in or out of water and live in complete darkness.
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How did snakes survive the dinosaur extinction?

The impact caused devastation, with most animals and plants dying out. But scientists say a handful of surviving snake species were able to thrive in a post-apocalyptic world by hiding underground and going long periods without food.
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Did humans and dinosaurs live at the same time?

No! After the dinosaurs died out, nearly 65 million years passed before people appeared on Earth.
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What survived the meteor that killed the dinosaurs?

Birds: Birds are the only dinosaurs to survive the mass extinction event 65 million years ago. Frogs & Salamanders: These seemingly delicate amphibians survived the extinction that wiped out larger animals.
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Did fish survive the dinosaur extinction?

After the extinction event, the ratio of these ray-finned fish remains shot up dramatically, quickly outnumbering those of sharks. Although the sharks also survived the end of the Cretaceous, their numbers appear to have remained flat, whereas the size and diversity of ray-finned fish populations took off.
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When was the last dinosaur alive?

Dinosaurs went extinct about 65 million years ago (at the end of the Cretaceous Period), after living on Earth for about 165 million years.
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What came before dinosaurs?

The age immediately prior to the dinosaurs was called the Permian. Although there were amphibious reptiles, early versions of the dinosaurs, the dominant life form was the trilobite, visually somewhere between a wood louse and an armadillo. In their heyday there were 15,000 kinds of trilobite.
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Did monkeys live with dinosaurs?

Based on the age of the fossils, the research team estimates that the ancestor of all primates — a group that also includes today's lemurs and monkeys — likely emerged by the Late Cretaceous and lived alongside large dinosaurs.
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How big was the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs?

The impact that ended the age of dinosaurs some 66 million years ago was the worst single day that life on Earth has ever endured. A six-mile-wide asteroid called Chicxulub slammed into the waters off what is now Mexico, triggering a mass extinction that killed off more than 75 percent of Earth's species.
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What was the last dinosaur on Earth?

Today's birds are the last of the dinosaurs, descendents of ancestors that didn't just survive this mass extinction, but evolutionarily exploded into thousands of species distributed around the world.
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What came first dinosaurs or snakes?

Snakes evolved after asteroid killed the dinosaurs, most life on Earth.
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Where did the meteor that killed the dinosaurs hit?

The giant asteroid, believed to be the size of Mount Everest, smashed into the Earth at a point now known as the Chicxulub crater. The impact site sits buried beneath the ocean in the Gulf of Mexico – you can see the exact location on Google Maps at the co-ordinates 21.4,-89.516667.
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Why did dinosaurs grow so big?

They had hollow bones, didn't chew their food, they had incredibly long necks, and likely possessed huge stomachs. These traits are theorized to be key in how they attained their enormous size.
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Why did some animals survive the asteroid?

It was their diet which enabled these mammals to survive in habitats nearly devoid of plant life. "Even if large herbivorous dinosaurs had managed to survive the initial meteor strike, they would have had nothing to eat," he said, "because most of the earth's above-ground plant material had been destroyed."
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Are dinosaurs coming back in 2050?

The Adam Smith Institute, a British think tank, has released a new report predicting what life will be like in 2050. According to the report: "Several species of dinosaur will be recreated, making their appearance on Earth for the first time in 66 million years.
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Can dinosaurs come back to life?

Unfortunately, dinosaurs probably cannot be cloned and brought back to life. Their DNA is too old since dinosaurs have been extinct for over 65 million years. Any genetic information is not likely to survive for one million years, so the dinosaurs are simply too old to be cloned.
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Will humans go extinct?

The scientific consensus is that there is a relatively low risk of near-term human extinction due to natural causes. The likelihood of human extinction through its own activities, however, is a current area of research and debate.
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Which animal is the oldest?

Jellyfish

Jellyfish are the oldest multi-organ animal in the world and have existed in some form for at least 500 million years.
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