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Non-avian dinosaurs went extinct about 66 million years ago.

The Claim

Dinosaurs went extinct before 75 million years ago.

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The Short Version

Non-avian dinosaurs survived well past 75 million years ago. They went extinct at the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary about 66 million years ago. A proposed decline in diversity beginning around 76 million years ago was not their extinction, and birds—which are dinosaurs—survived.

Caveats

  • A decline in dinosaur diversity is not the same as extinction.
  • The extinction date applies to non-avian dinosaurs; birds are surviving dinosaurs.
  • Research on a possible earlier extinction pulse does not place extinction before 75 million years ago.

The Receipts

  1. The Mesozoic terminated in boreal spring | Nature

    nature.com

  2. Asteroid impact, not volcanism, caused the end-Cretaceous dinosaur extinction

    pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

  3. The extinction of the dinosaurs

    onlinelibrary.wiley.com

  4. Time Scales of Critical Events Around the Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary | Science

    science.org

  5. Dinosaur biodiversity declined well before the asteroid impact, influenced by ecological and environmental pressures | Nature Communications

    preview-www.nature.com

  6. Dinosaur extinction can explain continental facies shifts at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary | Communications Earth & Environment | Springer Nature Link

    link.springer.com

  7. The Chicxulub Asteroid Impact and Mass Extinction at the Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary | Science

    science.org

  8. Late-surviving New Mexican dinosaurs illuminate high end-Cretaceous diversity and provinciality | Science

    science.org

  9. Shifts in food webs and niche stability shaped survivorship and extinction at the end-Cretaceous

    science.org

  10. The Chicxulub impact and its environmental consequences

    par.nsf.gov

+ 26 more sources — see the full list on Lenz

Filed Under

dinosaurs

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