That’s according to a study that sheds light on the origin of the giant prehistoric animals.
It’s widely believed that dinosaurs were wiped out after an asteroid impact roughly 65 million years ago, although some theories suggest different causes led to their extinction.
However, a recent study looks into how dinosaurs came to exist in the first place.
Researchers at the University of Bristol claimed that a mass extinction event which occurred 232 million years ago is what gave rise to the dinosaurs.
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REVEALED: A mass extinction helped trigger the expansion of dinosaurs
According to the team, about 232 million years ago, there had been huge volcanic eruptions occurring in Canada, which could have resulted in global warming with acidic rains wiping out the life that thrived on Earth at that time, on both land and the ocean.
In this study, researchers refer to this particular event as the Carnian Pluvial Episode, which enabled dinosaurs, that were at that time rare, to become diversified and become the largest predators of their time.
“The discovery of the existence of a link between the first diversification of dinosaurs and a global mass extinction is important,” said study co-author Mike Benton.
“The extinction didn’t just clear the way for the age of the dinosaurs, but also for the origins of many modern groups, including lizards, crocodiles, turtles, and mammals – key land animals today.”
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“We were excited to see that the footprints and skeletons told the same story”
Lead author
According to the scientists, a series of volcanic eruptions triggered millions of years of extreme climate change, shifting from dry conditions to humid and back to dry again.
The experts analysed rocks located in an Italian mountain range known as the Dolomites.
A series of dinosaur footprints found in rock layers enabled the scientists to establish the point in time when dinosaurs became dominant.
The first substantial number of dinosaur skeletons originated in Argentina and Brazil.
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The scientists compared their findings in Italy to the rock layers of these regions and confirmed that dinosaurs became prevalent in Argentina and Brazil at the same time, suggesting that the explosion happened globally.
“We were excited to see that the footprints and skeletons told the same story,” said lead author Dr Massimo Bernardi.
“We had been studying the footprints in the Dolomites for some time, and it’s amazing how clear cut the change from ‘no dinosaurs’ to ‘all dinosaurs’ was.”
While there were some dinosaurs present in the early Triassic Period 245 million years ago, they were rare until after the Carnian Pluvial Episode 13 million years later.
