• Question: how do you think the dinosaurs died?

    Asked by panda_pancakes165 to Natalie, Aaron on 16 Nov 2015.
    • Photo: Aaron Boardley

      Aaron Boardley answered on 16 Nov 2015:

      This is outside my area of expertise, so I rely on what other scientists have to say.

      One of the major theories is that the earth was hit by a large asteroid which caused a lot of destruction – and by throwing up lots of dust into the air it changed the earth’s atmosphere, which meant that the climate of the earth changed. As this has a big effect on things like sea levels and plant growth, it disrupted life for dinosaurs and they died out. However, there are other theories, and I’m not an expert!

      We often picture dinosaurs as lizards, but they actually have more in common with modern-day birds (compare the skeleton of a chicken with a t-rex!). Because birds survived and evolved to this day, we could say that some dinosaurs survived.

    • Photo: Natalie Garrett

      Natalie Garrett answered on 19 Nov 2015:

      Like Aaron, I don’t work in this field, so I rely on what I read to be informed on this question. As I understand it, there isn’t an answer for sure. Some things we do know for sure, based on evidence from the fossil record. This includes the fact that dinosaurs were roaming the earth between 230 million years ago and 65 million years ago, i.e. there were dinosaurs of some kind or other living on earth for a total of around 165 million years – that is a very very long time! By comparison, humans have only been around for 200,000 years.

      We also know from the fossil record that it looks like the planet’s temperature changed to be cooler during the end of the dinosaur’s reign. It’s possible that this climate change made them die off, since many dinosaurs are thought to have been cold blooded. Smaller, warm blooded animals would have therefore had an advantage, hence why mammals survived. Some say that a meteor impact was the main cause, that particles from the impact blocked out the sun and caused plants to die, which made the herbivores die off, which made the carnivores die off…

      Nobody knows for sure, though. What do you think?

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