They Found the First Fossil of a Dinosaur That Died on the Same Day the Asteroid Impact That Shut Down Them – Teach Me Science

66 million years ago, an asteroid about 12 kilometers in diameter collided with the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. It is difficult to ascertain the scale of the event, although it appears that it was enough to end the reign of the mythical dinosaurs.

Scientists recently revealed an amazingly preserved dinosaur leg, but that’s not the surprising part, the creature died on the same day a giant asteroid hit Earth. As reported by the BBC. (You can watch the video presentation here).

“It’s crazy,” said Philip Manning, professor of natural history at the University of Manchester. On BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said the leg of a tylosaurus discovered at the Tanis site in North Dakota was “the ultimate dinosaur leg”.

“The temporal solution we can achieve in this location is beyond our wildest dreams…This shouldn’t really exist which is absolutely amazing. I’ve never dreamed in my entire career that I’d see something a) so limited in time; and b) so beautiful, It also tells such a wonderful story.

Everything we know about non-avian dinosaurs is based on fossils, which include bones, teeth, tracks, tracks, eggs, and skin impressions. For centuries, people all over the world have discovered amazing fossil bones and footprints. The first finds were inspired by legends and fairy tales, where people imagined that these bones belonged to giants or huge monsters.

The fossil in question was found at the Tanis site, in North Dakota (USA). And he wasn’t alone, the finds included: a confused turtle on a plank, the skin of a triceratops, a pterosaur gene inside its egg, and possibly part of the impacted asteroid itself.

Speaking of this catastrophe, dinosaurs are the most common, but along with three-quarters of life on Earth became extinct, including the fearsome marine and flying reptiles: mosasaurs, ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and pterosaurs. In general, all diversity was greatly reduced and life had to flourish after the disaster.

Like dinosaurs, pterosaurs stand out as one of the great success stories of evolution. They lived during the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods, 215 million years ago, and thrived for about 150 million years before becoming extinct.

Talking about these amazing fossils and adding the story that they died on the same day from an asteroid impact that killed about 70% of life seems impossible, so you can continue to doubt the specialists.

Professor Steve Busati, from the University of Edinburgh, says it will be necessary to wait for researchers with specific disciplines to analyze the discovery. He argued that these creatures could have died prior to the impact, for any other reason, only that in this disastrous scenario, the remains could have been removed and thus appear to have died simultaneously.

However, for some of these discoveries, does it matter if they died the day before or previous years? A pterosaur egg with a small pterosaur inside is extremely rare. There is nothing like it in North America. Not everything has to revolve around the asteroid.” Professor Pussat told the BBC:.