• Question: what would happen if dinosours didnt die

    Asked by miajayde to Lisa, Mark, Rachel, Sammie, Stephen, Tim on 8 Mar 2018.
    • Photo: Sammie Buzzard

      Sammie Buzzard answered on 8 Mar 2018:

      This is something scientists don’t know and there’s lot of debate about what would have happened if there hadn’t been a mass extension, probably from an asteroid. There are some that say because the planet was cooling the dinosaurs would have died out anyway just more slowly and they would have been replaced by more types of mammal that are better suited to cope with the climate, but others argue they may have evolved themselves to adapt with the conditions. This is a really great question because is thought that if the asteroid had arrived just a tiny bit earlier (sen by a few minutes) it could have landed in the ocean and done a lot less damage.

    • Photo: Tim Duckenfield

      Tim Duckenfield answered on 13 Mar 2018:

      It’s a fun question to think about! Most scientists think that mammals (like us) only really had the chance to evolve into big groups and big animals because of the extinction event. Did you know humans are closer in history to the Tyrannosaurus-Rex than the T-rex was to the Diplodocus!? The T-rex was around about 68 million years ago (Late Cretaceous), but the Diplodocus was a whopping 154 million years ago (Late Jurassic)!!!! So despite being in the movies together, they never were. Mammals didn’t really evolve in that 86 million years between, probably because dinosaurs ruled the Earth! So I think it’s fair to say that if dinosaurs didn’t get wiped out, we wouldn’t be here…

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