They live near the water However, for some reason, freshwater rivers and lakes were less impacted by the meteor. This helped the Crocodiles survive, as their amphibious lifestyle let them roam the rivers to escape the land and sea disasters.
There are two main reasons. First, crocodiles can live for a very long time without food. Second, they lived in places that were the least affected when the asteroid hit Earth.
Crocodiles had some keys to survival
Crocodiles were another group that famously survived the asteroid. Obviously they can't fly, don't have feathers and don't eat seeds! But they had other secrets to success. Firstly, crocodile bodies use very little energy.
"So the hypothesis that came out of this was the animals that survived the extinction preferentially survived because they were able to dig to get underground, survive that immediate impact period and the fires, the nuclear winter, and just hunker down for a bit."
Alligators & Crocodiles: These sizeable reptiles survived–even though other large reptiles did not. Birds: Birds are the only dinosaurs to survive the mass extinction event 65 million years ago.
Tardigrades have been around a long time.
Fossils date their existence on Earth to more than 500 million years ago. This means tardigrades have survived the planet's last five mass extinction events.
After the asteroid struck Earth long ago, all birds with teeth went extinct. But many of the toothless ones kept living. Some scientists think not having teeth is what allowed these birds to survive. Fossils of early toothless birds show they were able to eat more plant-based food – specifically nuts, fruits and seeds.
Once the heat was off, mammals could come back out and make the most of the remaining food resources. There may not have been enough food for dinosaurs, but the more generalized tastes of mammals allowed them to hang on.
Diversity of most surviving species recovered in about 10 million years, a time frame typical of extinction events.
But then 66 million years ago, over a relatively short time, dinosaurs disappeared completely (except for birds). Many other animals also died out, including pterosaurs, large marine reptiles, and ammonites.
During the Age of Dinosaurs there were other reptiles living on the land and in the seas. While these animals lived alongside dinosaurs, they did not have a hole in their hip socket and thus were not dinosaurs.
A new species of crocodile that lived about 95 million years old was discovered in Australia, and researchers discovered it ate a dinosaur as its final meal.
The reason, they surmise, is that while the extinction event was devastating to forests, frogs are incredibly adaptable and able to exist in smaller microhabitats.
The findings suggested that ancient Egyptians acquired crocodiles for mummification through hunting, in addition to previously known procurement methods like recovering carcasses or breeding animals for the sole purpose of sacrificing them.
A fossil skull of the extinct Crocodylus checchiai provides more evidence that crocodiles spread across the world by migrating from Australia, through Africa and finally to South America.
Despite being poor swimmers, researchers have discovered that the saltwater crocodile (also known as estuarine) commonly travels long distances over open oceans by riding ocean currents.
Crocodiles have the impressive distinction of being the only type of land animal weighing more than 50 pounds to survive the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K-Pg) extinction. Their semi-aquatic life certainly was a help, but also crocodiles are just pretty badass in general.
Darkness caused by dino-killing asteroid snuffed out life on Earth in 9 months. As sunlight dimmed, plants and animals died.
When the asteroid slammed into Earth, it wiped out 75% of living species, including any mammal much larger than a rat. Half the plant species died out.
For approximately 120 million years—from the Carboniferous to the middle Triassic periods—terrestrial life was dominated by the pelycosaurs, archosaurs, and therapsids (the so-called "mammal-like reptiles") that preceded the dinosaurs.
If they didn't die, but instead kept evolving, they may have developed even bigger brains and keener senses. And given millions of years of evolution, perhaps they would have taken the path of primates, eventually developing tool use, sophisticated communication, and even complex societies.
No! After the dinosaurs died out, nearly 65 million years passed before people appeared on Earth. However, small mammals (including shrew-sized primates) were alive at the time of the dinosaurs.
Most dinosaurs went extinct. Only birds remained. Over the next 66 million years, birds evolved in many ways, which enabled them to survive in lots of different habitats.
Dinosaur eggs underwent slow incubation periods, putting the newborn creatures and their parents at risk from predators and other environmental factors, new research has found. This could explain why the prehistoric animals could not reproduce fast enough after mass extinction, causing them to die out.