New clues unearthed about mammals' rapid evolution after dinosaur extinction
August 27, 2018 by Sandrine Ceurstemont
It was a life-altering event. 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. Now we have new clues about how that happened.
Dr. Steve Brusatte, a palaeontologist at the University of Edinburgh, UK, who previously studied the dinosaurs' extinction, sought to understand exactly how this event affected mammals and their evolution.
'I wanted to find out where mammals were living, what were their habits … and how this exciting period of evolution set the stage for the great diversity of mammals that exists today,' he said.
Read more at:
https://phys.org/news/2018-08-clues-unearthed-mammals-rapid-evolution.html#jCp
