But dinosaurs, with their months-long incubation periods, didn’t have much of a chance. Species such as the Hypacrosaurus and even the shorter-incubating Protoceratops would have had a much harder time incubating and repopulating.
In an FSU statement, Erickson said: “Our findings might have implications for understanding why dinosaurs went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous period. Whereas amphibians, birds, mammals, and other reptiles made it through and prospered.”
You probably know that around sixty-six million years ago an asteroid struck the earth and threw into chaos the entire world.
Debris filled the atmosphere and lowered temperatures dramatically, changing the ecosystem of the entire earth and turning the planet dark.
The number of changes this led to is practically innumerable. Scientists believe that already seventy-five percent of species living at the time died out due to the changing ecosystems, lack of light, and reduced air.
Those species that did survive probably did it by adapting their reproduction methods: species that were able to reproduce quickly ended up surviving and repopulating the earth. For example, the ancestors of modern-day birds developed shorter incubation periods, which not only made their unsafe egg periods shorter, but also allowed them to repopulate more quickly.
Erickson and his team think that dinosaurs' long incubation and development times stood in the way of their continued survival, but there are likely many other factors at play.
These creatures were often large and required a lot of food to keep themselves going. They had even more disadvantages. Since they needed so much food, and so much of the planet was dying out, many likely succumbed to starvation. In addition, all dinosaurs were cold-blooded, which meant they relied on outside heat sources. With the sun covered under layers of dust and debris, freezing became a much worse threat.
Erickson has also said that dinosaurs likely took a long time to mature, even after they'd hatched. Such slow-developing creatures weren't well-equipped to take on the challenges of the post-asteroid world, and couldn't adapt in time to last.
Adjusting to change and adapting is a critical skill for all species (even humans!) and being unable to do that after such a dramatic change to the planet may have spelled the death of dinosaurs as we know them.