• Question: why do you think dinosaures became extinct

    Asked by ledw to Christina, Colin, Jess, Samaneh, Steve on 18 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Steven Gardner

      Steven Gardner answered on 18 Jun 2013:

      Some would say they’re not!

      65 million years ago a huge meteorite crashed into the earth, causing dust to fly into the air and block the sun. This caused the temperature to drop, which is bad news for dinsoaurs because they are reptiles. Reptiles are cold blooded which means they can’t control their body temperature like mammals and birds do, and so they need warm places to function (we sweat to cool down and use blood vessels near the skin to get rid of extra heat). So dinosaurs started to die out…..

      But they didn’t all die out, modern birds are the decendents of dinosaurs (of raptors I think!), and crocodiles survived the cold spell too. Why some survived and others didn’t is a mystery.

    • Photo: Christina Pagel

      Christina Pagel answered on 18 Jun 2013:

      The meteorite pretty much was the death knell for dinosaurs but they’d been the dominant species for millions and millions of years – much much longer than humans and mammals have been ! Even without the meteorite, they would have probably kept on evolving into something other than dinosaurs but now we’ll never know 🙂

      And as Steve says, some modern animals are direct descendents of dinosaurs. Plus some fish around today (like sharks and sturgeon) are basically unchanged since dinosaur times!

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