A new study suggests that early mammals, including human ancestors, co-existed with dinosaurs before a massive asteroid struck Earth 66 million years ago. Paleontology Evolution
Sign up for our email newsletter for the latest science newsFor thousands of years now, mammals have held dominion over the land. But it wasn’t always this way., early mammals evolved before a massive asteroid hit the planet 66 million years ago and therefore lived briefly in the shadow of the dinosaurs.
These hard-scrabble animals included the earliest relatives of humans, dogs, rabbits, cats and any mammal that gives birth with a placenta. They survived until an asteroid marked the end of the Cretaceous Period and the reign of larger dinosaurs. And then these early mammals exploded in diversity, leading to the world we see today.came to these conclusions through a statistical analysis of the existing fossil record, which comes from rocks younger than 66 million years ago, the paper says.
“We pulled together thousands of fossils of placental mammals and were able to see the patterns of origination and extinction of the different groups,” says Emily Carlisle, a researcher at the University of Bristol, in aCarlisle – along with other paleontologists from the University of Bristol and the University of Fribourg – identified seven mammalian families with fossils extending back to 66 million years ago, meaning they must have descended from a pre-asteroid common ancestor.
The “short fuse” model assumes that the process began deep in the Cretaceous, whereas the “long fuse” and “soft explosive” versions conclude it began later in the period. The paper says its findings support the latter two theories that claim a brief overlap between dinosaurs and mammals.Brasilodon quadrangularis
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