![]() ![]() We knew that all these families had survived until the end of the Cretaceous, marked by the fall of the asteroid. The other three were herbivores: the Ceratopsidae (represented in particular by the Triceratops), the Hadrosauridae (the richest of all the families in terms of diversity) and the Ankylosauridae (represented in particular by the Ankylosaur, a dinosaur covered in bony armour with a club-like tail). Dinosaur asteroid ‘hit worst possible place’. ![]() Three of these families were carnivorous: the Tyrannosauridae, the Dromaeosauridae (including the Velociraptor, made famous by the Jurassic Park movies) and the Troodontidae (small dinosaurs similar to birds). We were interested in six families of dinosaurs, the most representative and the most diversified of the 40 million years that preceded the arrival of the asteroid. But how were the dinosaurs faring before this cataclysm? This is the question we try to answer in our new study, the results of which have just been published in the scientific journal Nature Communications. This "nuclear winter" causes the extinction of many plant and animal species.Īmong the latter, the most emblematic: the dinosaurs. Tonnes and tonnes of dust are ejected into the atmosphere, plunging the planet into darkness. The impact also triggers worldwide tsunamis. Most of the animals on the American continent are killed immediately. ![]() The impact causes an explosion whose magnitude is hard to imagine today – several billion times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Some 66 million years ago, on the Yucatán peninsula in Mexico, a 12 kilometre-wide (7.5 mile) asteroid crashes to Earth. ![]()
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