Why did dinosaurs go extinct...

[Raziaar]

But other creatures which lived in the same time period, and before, survived?

Why is it that dinosaurs were the ones wiped out, and not the other reptilian species such as alligators and turtles, etc. Even the rodents and other creatures which lived when dinosaurs were around.

What made the dinosaurs less hardy of a species that they would go extinct, and the others wouldn't... including dinosaurs that lived in the oceans. You would think at least a few species of dinosaurs would have survived whatever caused the extinction, just like so many other critter species survived it.

 

[Core407]

Because you touch yourself at night.

 

[PvtRyan]

Meteor hits earth > kicks up lots of dust > dust blocks sunlight > many plants die > large herbivores cant find sufficient food > large herbivores die > large predators die because their prey died > smaller scavengers die. Something like that.

Food demands increase exponentially as the bodysize increases. So that would explain why smaller herbivores (small mammals, turtles, etc) were able to find sufficient food still.

The smaller carnivores were probably outcompeted by birds (former dinosaurs) and mammals.

 

[kirovman]

PvtRyan is probably right.

Or they left of their own accord, only to return to Earth sometime in the 21st Century....

 

[lePobz]

Chuck Norris killed the dinosaurs in 1908. They owed him money, or something.

 

[CptStern]

owned by asteriod ..but not quite the way PvtRyan says it happened:

 

[tehsolace]

The FarSide knows...

 

[Sulkdodds]

But other creatures which lived in the same time period, and before, survived?

Why is it that dinosaurs were the ones wiped out, and not the other reptilian species such as alligators and turtles, etc. Even the rodents and other creatures which lived when dinosaurs were around.

What made the dinosaurs less hardy of a species that they would go extinct, and the others wouldn't... including dinosaurs that lived in the oceans. You would think at least a few species of dinosaurs would have survived whatever caused the extinction, just like so many other critter species survived it.

It's not like all the dinosaurs died out as soon as the meteor hit. We must remember it probably took at least a hundred thousand years (if not way more) for the last of them to totally die out. They were already in decline at the end of Cretaceous anyway - the world was changing too much, the atmosphere draining of oxygen (back then, there was a hell of a lot more in it).

The larger animals would not have survived the dust clouds or whatever, no. As already said, there would have been insufficient plant life for the larger herbivores to survive; thus there would have been insufficient big herbivore life for the larger carnivores to survive. As for the smaller animals, they had a big problem: mammals and birds, both fully warm-blooded species to whom the dust clouds did no direct harm (it's likely that most dinosaurs, while not fully cold-blooded, were at least in part affected by the sun, being hybrid organisms; even if they weren't, these strange quick new things with fur and feathers were better adapted to the new world order). The small animals were out-competed by the interlopers, supposedly our ancestors.

As for other reptiles:

Alligators can go for ages without a meal and in any case are very hardy animals - a design that's lasted a very long time (like sharks). Note also that they can feed on practically anything meat that happens to float down their river. Even then, I'm sure a lot of them died as well.

I don't know much about turtles but afaik they feed on underwater plants which don't get too much sun anyway.

Lizards and shit must have had a hard time of it but were probably too small for the drop in available biomass to feed on to really be that much of a problem. They could eke out a living.

Actually, with regards to dinosaurs surviving, archeologist Alan Grant has proposed an interesting alternate theory: that the dinosaurs did not all die out, but "turned into birds." Click the image for more info:

 

[SimonomiS]

 

[cherry]

the answer to these questions is known, just google it ffs. use wikepedia.

 

[PvtRyan]

the answer to these questions is known, just google it ffs. use wikepedia.

The whole topic was probably bait for the "Because you touch yourself at night." line.

 

[Core407]

the answer to these questions is known, just google it ffs. use wikepedia.

It's not known, but just assumed.

 

[PvtRyan]

It's not known, but just assumed.

The earth orbiting the sun is assumed. There's substantial evidence for both though.

 

[Core407]

The earth orbiting the sun is assumed. There's substantial evidence for both though.

Still not 100% true.

 

[PvtRyan]

Still not 100% true.

Nothing ever is.

 

[The Monkey]

Nothing ever is.

Evolution is :naughty:

 

[Raziaar]

the answer to these questions is known, just google it ffs. use wikepedia.

Stop being a ****. If I wanted to google it, I would of googled it.

I wanted to see what people had to say.

You're becoming all too predictable, you know.

 

[kirovman]

It's true, we have some interesting debates over these things.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Stop being a ****. If I wanted to google it, I would of googled it.

You mean you would have googled it, language-rapist!

This way (forumz!!!!1) is more fun anyway.

Google does not provide you with nostalgia-inducing pictures/sound files of Sam Neill.

 

[Raziaar]

Weren't there any smaller aquatic herbivore dinosaurs? They could have survived like the sea turtles did, which are older than dinosaurs?

It just seems so crazy to me, that the critters classified as dinosaurs... all went extinct. You'd think some would have been able to survive. Which they may have, since somebody in this thread mentioned they may have evolved into birds.

 

[kirovman]

I think that they were dinosaurs because they were extinct, not extinct because they were dinosaurs, from an academic point of view. Otherwise we'd class Crocodiles as dinosaurs.

Not that I know what I'm talking about.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Weren't there any smaller aquatic herbivore dinosaurs? They could have survived like the sea turtles did, which are older than dinosaurs?

Nope; there were no aquatic dinosaurs. There were aquatic creatures, such as the Icthyosaurs and Plesiosaurus-type creatures, but, like the flying Pterasaurs, who were obviously out-competed by birds (it's just a much better 'design') they were not true dinosaurs, though they belonged to a pretty closely-related group...which isn't saying much because dinosaurs were incredibly diverse even within their twin categories of Saurischia and Ornithschia (sp?). These animals actually didn't last long beyond the Jurassic-Cretaceous devide as far as I know; they'd all died out by the end of the early Cretaceous period. Why? I'm not sure - you'd have to look it up - but I suspect it was something to do with the temperature of the oceans; these things thrived in warm waters, but the seas were getting colder, I think.

None of them were very small either. Turtles are small, but they're a lot further removed from dinosaurs.

It was I/Alan Grant who mentioned the transition to birds, but obviously you realise they didn't 'survive'...since a lot of animals would have had to die during the evolutionary process.

Whatever happened, a lot of dinosaur made it out of the mesozoic just by eventually evolving into birds and flying off into the new world order!

 

[kirovman]

Bird are evil. Look at their eyes. If they had big T-Rex teeth, they'd snap you up like that.

 

[MiccyNarc]

It just seems so crazy to me, that the critters classified as dinosaurs... all went extinct. You'd think some would have been able to survive. Which they may have, since somebody in this thread mentioned they may have evolved into birds.

Errr...just because they involve into something doesn't mean the species stops existing (aka chimps)

 

[Sam]

George Bush has access to time travel technology, which explains why a lot of things died back then.

Button make boom!

 

[GhostBoi]

Errr...just because they involve into something doesn't mean the species stops existing (aka chimps)

It doesn't mean that the pre-evolved form has to stop existing, but if the new species provides too much competition than the old ones would die out.