Dinosaurs Were Actually Not in Decline When The Asteroid Hit

Experts now say dinosaurs would have likely continued to dominate the planet had it not been for the asteroid.

Transcript

00:00 It's long been known that a giant asteroid hit the Earth when dinosaurs still walked

00:06 it, sending them on the path to extinction.

00:08 But now researchers from the University of Bath and the Natural History Museum say, if

00:12 not for that fateful impact, dinosaurs would have thrived for many more years.

00:16 It's long been believed that even before the asteroid struck Earth, dino populations

00:20 were likely in decline.

00:21 But using dinosaur family trees of a much broader variety than any previous study, and

00:25 examining the evolutionary rates of those families, experts were able to conclude that

00:29 the dominant species at the time would have continued to produce offspring if not for

00:33 the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event, which the researchers say they would have

00:36 continued to be the quote "dominant group of land animals on the planet" for years

00:40 to come.

00:41 Meaning if not for the giant rock falling from the sky some 66 million years ago, dinosaurs

00:45 might still be walking around today.

00:47 Ok, maybe not today, but it certainly could have changed the evolutionary trajectory of

00:51 our planet forever.

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