T-Rex Pendant - Extinction

Product History

For about 160 million years dinosaurs were the largest and most successful animals on land. About 65 million years ago dinosaurs and many other reptiles died out. Mammals then became the dominant animals on earth.

There are two main theories to explain dinosaur extinction. (1) The collision of a huge asteroid against the earth. This would have thrown billions of tons of dust and debris into the atmosphere that would have blocked out the sun for many months. Vegetation would not grow and animals would starve. Heat from the impact would have caused large spread fires and without sunlight the earth's temperature would drop below freezing. (2) Gradual climate changes may have made the winters too cold and summers too hot for dinosaurs to survive. Dinosaurs were too large to hibernate in dens and had no fur or feathers for protection against the cold. They also had problems cooling down in hot weather.

Small mammals and birds probably survived as they had fur and feathers to combat the cold and could feed entirely on seeds, nuts and rotting vegetation.