Who Was The Last One Standing? Fossil News Sheds Light On Extinction

There are no puzzles in paleontology that are more tantalizing than the extinction of dinosaurs some sixty-five million years ago. While the predominant theory — a super-sized meteor hit the Earth and released the power of a thousand thermonuclear weapons — has become more and more concrete, new discoveries and fossil news make the debate more complex each year. Last year, Yale University scientists unearthed the horn of a ceratopsian (probably a Triceratops) within Montana. The horn is interesting due to its location a mere five inches under the geologic layer that marks the transition from Cretaceous to Tertiary period — the epoch when all dinosaurs vanished from the world forever.

Prior to this discovery, there had been no dinosaur fossils that had been found within ten feet of the so-called “K-T boundary”. As such, some paleontologists speculate that dinosaurs could have gone extinct prior to the meteor impact, after, or through a longer process. The Yale unearthing, however, suggests otherwise: at least one dinosaur species had been going strong up until the last days (or at least, the last few thousand years) before the meteor hit Earth and changed life on the planet by facilitating the rise of mammals — including homo sapiens.

Some dinosaurs may have been better adapted to the dying days of the Cretaceous than others. Avian dinosaurs, such as the ultra-fast therapods and ‘raptor’ dinosaurs, who likely had feathers for heat conservation and display, could possibly have thrived in a situation where the non-avians could not. As ceratopsians were non-avians, however, this single horn is good evidence that the bird-like and non bird-like dinosaurs both were doing fine up until an asteroid the size of New York City hit the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. It seems likely now that the impact itself, rather than prior environmental causes, would have eradicated the dinosaur species.