Not all dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago. Avian dinosaurs–in other words, birds–survived and flourished. Museum scientists estimate that there are more than 18,000 bird species alive today. A variety of other species also survived on land, including frogs, snakes, lizards and mammals.
Around 66 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous period, an asteroid struck the Earth, triggering a mass extinction that killed off the dinosaurs and some 75% of all species. Somehow mammals survived, thrived, and became dominant across the planet.
Today there are at least 11,000 bird species. But with such a close relationship to the extinct dinosaurs, why did birds survive? The answer probably lies in a combination of things: their small size, the fact they can eat a lot of different foods and their ability to fly. Watch the animation to find out more.
Did you know that plants like magnolias and ferns were around when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, surviving mass extinctions? Their fossils have been found across the world – and we have living examples of them at the Eden Project.
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.
Another crocodilian expert, Adam Rosenblatt, told me that while the ageing process in these animals is still not fully understood, the evidence we do have "all points to the conclusion that crocodilians are not immortal and are subjected to natural ageing and death processes".
Scientists already know that an asteroid—or perhaps a comet—struck Earth off Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula. The resulting 110 miles/80 kilometers wide Chicxulub crater is thought to have caused a decades-long “impact winter” that killed the dinosaurs.
In an evolutionary sense, birds are a living group of dinosaurs because they descended from the common ancestor of all dinosaurs. Other than birds, however, there is no scientific evidence that any dinosaurs, such as Tyrannosaurus, Velociraptor, Apatosaurus, Stegosaurus, or Triceratops, are still alive.
Crocodiles
Well, crocodiles share a heritage with dinosaurs as part of a group known as archosaurs (“ruling reptiles”), who date back to the Early Triassic period (250 million years ago). The earliest crocodilian, meanwhile, evolved around 95 million years ago, in the Late Cretaceous period.
Birds: Birds are the only dinosaurs to survive the mass extinction event 65 million years ago.
According to the Bible, dinosaurs must have been created by God on the sixth day of creation. Genesis 1:24 says, “And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.”
Dinosaurs went extinct about 65 million years ago (at the end of the Cretaceous Period), after living on Earth for about 165 million years.
Darkness caused by dino-killing asteroid snuffed out life on Earth in 9 months. As sunlight dimmed, plants and animals died. The years following the asteroid impact that wiped out non-avian dinosaurs were dark times — literally.
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.
Could we clone a dinosaur? DNA breaks down over time. The dinosaurs went extinct around 66 million years ago and with so much time having passed it is very unlikely that any dinosaur DNA would remain today. While dinosaur bones can survive for millions of years, dinosaur DNA almost certainly does not.
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.
Plant life consisted mostly of ferns, conifers and small shrubs. Animals included sharks, bony fish, arthropods, amphibians, reptiles and synapsids. The first true mammals would not appear until the next geological period, the Triassic.
Australia is home to two species of crocodiles, the Estuarine Crocodile and the Freshwater Crocodile. Both belong to the reptile family Crocodylidae (the 'true crocodiles'), members of the sub-class Archosauria.
While all birds are descended from dinosaurs, the mysterious cassowary is thought to be more similar to ancient dinosaurs than most other birds. Large bodied with fierce claws, these flightless birds also have casques, a helmet-like structure atop the head, which many dinosaurs are believed to have had.
The closest living relatives of Tyrannosaurus rex are birds such as chickens and ostriches, according to research published today in Science (and promptly reported in the New York Times). Paleontologists used material discovered in a chance find in 2003 to pin down the link.
These relatives of Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor can be found thriving all over the planet: We call them birds. From AMNH: In the view of most paleontologists today, birds are living dinosaurs.
Sharks are older than trees and dinosaurs
The earliest evidence of shark fossils dates back as far as 450 million years, which means these creatures have been around at least 90 million years before trees and 190 million years before dinosaurs.
What Happened in Brief. According to abundant geological evidence, an asteroid roughly 10 km (6 miles) across hit Earth about 65 million years ago. This impact made a huge explosion and a crater about 180 km (roughly 110 miles) across.
The Chicxulub Event
65 million years ago an asteroid roughly 10 to 15 kilometers (6 to 9 miles) in diameter hit Earth in what is now Mexico. The impact killed 70% of all species on Earth, including the dinosaurs.
The asteroid is thought to have been between 10 and 15 kilometres wide, but the velocity of its collision caused the creation of a much larger crater, 150 kilometres in diameter - the second-largest crater on the planet.