Morocco dinosaur discovery gives clues on why they went extinct
66 million years ago, the last dinosaurs vanished from Earth. We’re still trying to understand why. New fossils of abelisaurs – distant relatives of the tyrannosaurs – from North Africa suggest that African dinosaurs remained diverse up to the very end. And that suggests their demise came suddenly, with the impact of a giant asteroid. NICHOLAS R. LONGRICH, Senior Lecturer in Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences at the University of Bath, University of Bath The causes of the mass extinction have been debated for two centuries. Georges Cuvier, the father of palaeontology, thought extinction was driven by catastrophes. Charles…
