What Animals Survived The Extinction Of The Dinosaurs

How did the crocodiles survive the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs? – Éamonn, age five, Western Australia

How-do-you-do Éamonn! This is a dandy question, and one many scientists have asked.

In that location are 2 main reasons. First, crocodiles can live for a very long time without food. Second, they lived in places that were the least afflicted when the asteroid striking Earth.

A battle-scarred saltwater crocodile resting near the Daintree River in Northward Queensland. Michael Lee

When the asteroid hit earth

About 66 million years agone, dinosaurs ruled World. Just and then a massive asteroid, more than 9 kilometres broad, slammed into the shallow sea virtually what is now Mexico.

The explosion from this was then huge, it led to global earthquakes, tidal waves, bushfires and even poisonous rain.

Besides, the asteroid hit at one of the worst possible places, where the rocks could easily be "exploded" (or vapourised). This threw up massive amounts of dust into the heaven, blocking out the Sun for many months and sending Earth into a long, dark and freezing winter.

Without sunlight, the greenish plants died, followed by the plant-eating animals that ate them to survive, and the meat-eaters that ate the plant-eaters.

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Scientists retrieve three-quarters of all the unlike kinds (species) of animals on Earth were wiped out – including well-nigh dinosaurs.

Just some managed to survive for a range of reasons.

One of import group of dinosaurs sailed through, helped past their power to wing and find nutrient in faraway places. Their feathers protected them from the cold, and their beaks permit them consume buried seeds plant well-nigh dead plants.

Amazingly, these dinosaur survivors are still with us today. We call them birds!

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Crocodiles had some keys to survival

Crocodiles were some other grouping that famously survived the asteroid. Patently they tin can't fly, don't have feathers, and don't eat seeds! But they had other secrets to success.

Firstly, crocodile bodies use very little free energy. They lie around a lot, exhale slowly and fifty-fifty have a very slow heartbeat. This is how they can hold their jiff underwater for more than an hour.

It also means they can get without food for months, and sometimes more than than a year. This would have been very helpful when nutrient (such as other animals) became difficult to find once the asteroid hit.

Dinosaurs, on the other hand, were generally more active, which means they needed more free energy – especially meat-eaters like Velociraptor. Without food, they would have died quickly.

Dinosaurs such as Velociraptor would have struggled to survive without much food after the asteroid hit. That is, if they survived in the first place. Shutterstock

Crocodiles also lived in places where losing light-green plants didn't make a big departure. Call up of a wood or a grassland (where many dinosaurs lived): if the plants there die, and then all the animals that need them die likewise, including the meat-eaters which are left with no food.

Only the crocodile survivors by and large lived in places like rivers, lakes and coasts. The animals living in these places don't need green plants as much. Dead plants and animal material washes in from surrounding land, which is eaten by tiny creatures, which are so eaten past larger creatures including crocodiles.

Then dissimilar dinosaurs living on the land, crocodiles in a river would non accept starved equally soon as the dark-green plants died.

Our mammalian ancestors also survived

A similar reason helps explain why homo beings' ancestors besides survived the asteroid bear on. These were the modest mammals that lived near the end of the age of dinosaurs, which eventually gave ascent to all the unlike kinds of mammals around today (including humans).

They were mainly small, rat-similar things that scurried well-nigh in the dead leaf litter on the footing, eating insects and worms. These tiny creatures relied not on living greenish plants, but on dead leaves and bark falling from the trees, or being blown and done in from elsewhere.

So just like the crocodiles, our tiny ancestors survived the asteroid partly because they didn't depend heavily on living plants. A adept thing likewise: these lucky survival skills are the reason you and I are here today!