What killed the dinosaurs? (2024)

Create a list of articles to read later. You will be able to access your list from any article in Discover.

You don't have any saved articles.

The fossil record shows that for the first 175 million years of their existence, dinosaurs took on a huge variety of forms as the environment changed and new species evolved that were suited to these new conditions. Dinosaurs that failed to adapt went extinct.

But then66 million years ago, over a relatively short time,dinosaurs disappearedcompletely (except for birds).Many other animals also died out, including pterosaurs, large marine reptiles, and ammonites.

Although the number of dinosaur species was already declining, thissuggests a sudden catastrophic eventsealed their fate - something that caused unfavourable changes to the environment to occur more quickly than dinosaurs and other creatures could adapt.

What caused the Cretaceous extinction?

The exact nature of this catastrophic event is still open to scientific debate. Evidence suggests anasteroid impact was the main culprit. Volcanic eruptions that caused large-scale climate change may also have been involved, together with more gradual changes to Earth's climate that happened over millions of years.

Whatever the causes, the huge extinction that ended the age of the dinosaurleft gaps in ecosystems around the world. These were subsequentlyfilled by the only dinosaurs to survive - birds - and mammals, both of which went on to evolve rapidly.

Discover more about what caused the extinction of the dinosaurs >