by Wayne Leon Learmond

Created on: April 08, 2009

The Extinction of the Dinosaurs

For 165 Million Years, give or take a million years or so, the dinosaurs - along with the insects - were the supreme life forms upon this earth. Indeed, the earth was their kingdom. They fought, they hunted, they bred, whilst the mammals, {included in that is us, although we looked nothing like humans as yet,} battled for the scraps that they left behind. You have to remember that at this particular point in time, Planet Earth was still forming, still young, so-to-speak, as was the sun and the moon too. Indeed from the moment the first air-breathing fish left the seas and oceans and began to walk upon the land...well, the earth was their oyster. With plenty of food available, the dinosaurs had it good for so long. They soon bred, became bigger, stronger, more agile. They became purpose made for the environment that they inhabited at that time.

And within the seas, animals formed, as they did on the land - to grow bigger, stronger, faster. Always evolving as much as their surroundings would allow. In fact, the dinosaurs - on land and in the oceans - as well as the insects - became the most successful life forms ever produced by the earth. They had it all...and then suddenly, it was gone.

There have been many theories as to the extinction of the dinosaurs and some of the insects too that died out. Why did they die out? In fact, dinosaurs where well adapted to the environment they lived in. Their dominion was worldwide and they were indeed, the most successful species on the planet. They inhabited every single continent on the face of this planet - and that included Antarctica.

In fact dinosaur fossils have even been found in high-altitude places such as the North Slope of Alaska {which is near the Arctic Ocean,} such was their distribution. But the question remains...what happened to them to cause such mass extinction? As I have pointed out, there have been many theories on this puzzling enigma of nature. We do know that there have been extinctions throughout the Earth's life, but nothing, as yet, on the scale of this.

Was it a meteor hit smashing into the earth, thereby causing toxic fires, winds and tidal waves to spread throughout the globe? Was it a sudden change in new types of plants, plants that the plant eaters could not consume? If the plant eaters died because of such a thing, then the big meat eating dinosaurs would have eventually died out too, through lack of their food source. And also, you have to remember, that it was

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>