About 66 million years ago , ahuge asteroidblasted towards Earth , wipe out three - quarters of plants and animals on the planet and heating plant up the worldfor 100,000 year . The dramatic outcome is most famous forkilling off the dinosaurs , but how did it affect birds ?
A fresh study , release inCurrent Biology , evoke that although some bird obviously did survive the asteroid , the one reliant on trees did not . Brobdingnagian woods fires would have swept across the world , so flying birds that nested in trees would n’t have made it through the aggregative - extinction effect . On the other hand , their less nimble reason - dwelling relatives did .
A team of scientists , lead by fossilist Daniel Field from the University of Bath , UK , analyzed the plant fogey record . They found that just after the asteroid impact there was a cracking mint of fusain from burnt down trees , along with tiny fern spore , which would have ab initio replaced the fall back forests .
The researchers also found that many of the birds living towards the end of the dinosaurs ’ reign were tree - dwelling . However , the most recent usual ancestor of today ’s skirt believably stayed on the land , leading the squad to close that the first flying shuttlecock cash in one’s chips out with the dinosaurs , and Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree - dwell behavior re - evolved by and by on .
Weirdly enough , bird are technically dinosaurs and initiate during the Triassic Period of the Mesozoic earned run average about 225 million years ago . Once upon a time they would have hadsharp tooth , but a pauperization tocut eggs incubation timemeant that this characteristic was lose . Exactlyhow they evolved to flyis often debate , but it would have allowed them to fill their own ecological niche and protect them from predator by perching up high .
“ Today , dame are the most diverse and globally far-flung radical of tellurian craniate fauna – there are nearly 11,000 live species , " Field said in astatement . " Only a handful of transmissible bird filiation bring home the bacon in pull round the K - Pg mass extinguishing event 66 million years ago , and all of today ’s amazing dwell bird diverseness can be traced to these ancient survivors . "
However , molecular evolutionist Alan Cooper toldSciencethat the actual history might not be as simple-minded as the Modern composition makes out . The research does n’t needfully show thatallthe public ’s forests were lose , and even if they were , other pressures might have also play a role in determining which birdie species come through .
Nevertheless , as co - author Regan Dunnpoints out , we can still find out from this the great unwashed extinction . " The end - Cretaceous event is the 5th lot extinction – we ’re in the sixth , " she said . " It ’s important for us to understand what happens when you demolish an ecosystem , like with disforestation and mood change – so we can have it off how our actions will pretend what comes after us . "
