Dinosaurs were in decline long before the Chicxulub asteroid finished them off

latimes.com

April 18, 2016

Instead, scientists have found evidence that dinosaurs were in the midst of a long, slow decline that began millions of years before the asteroid struck. In a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers report that at least 40 million years before the Chicxulub asteroid landed in Mexico, dinosaur species were going extinct at a higher rate than new ones were coming into existence. "There is no doubt that the Chicxulub impact was the final nail in the dinosaurs' coffin -- with the exception of birds," authors Manabu Sakamoto, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Reading in England, and Chris Venditti, professor of evolutionary biology at the university, said in an email.