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Effect of a giant meteorite impact on Paleoarchean environment and life

(www.chemistryworld.com)
133 points kristianp | 1 comments | 17 Nov 24 00:02 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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Timwi ◴[17 Nov 24 11:48 UTC] No.42163651[source]▶
The article perpetuates the widespread misconception that dinosaurs are extinct. In reality, (some) dinosaurs survived and evolved into modern birds. Everything from penguins to ostriches, hummingbirds to albatrosses and woodpeckers to eagles is a dinosaur.

Science communication should do better and clear up this misunderstanding.

It would be so much cooler to say that the asteroid killed the pterosaurs. Not only is it factually correct, it also opens doors to more curiosity. Why do they say pterosaurs instead of dinosaurs? Turns out they are separate clades. The pterosaurs, plesiosaurs and mosasaurs are all extinct as best as we can tell. The dinosaurs are not.

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jvanderbot ◴[17 Nov 24 14:51 UTC] No.42164465[source]▶
This is fascinating. Although I'm having trouble mapping your comment onto this: https://opengeology.org/historicalgeology/case-studies/dinos...

What is the complete set and which are extinct?

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1. addaon ◴[18 Nov 24 04:01 UTC] No.42169608[source]▶
> What is the complete set and which are extinct?

That's as good a complete tree as you're likely to get, down to the class level. Some species in the class Aves survived, and progenitor species with Aves are still around today. There's no significant evidence of species in other classes of the clade Dinosauria surviving much past the impact boundary.

You can push this up one level to the clade Avemetatarsalia (including Pterosaurs along with Dinosaurs) and the statement above would still be true; but pushing it further to Archosauria would not be valid, because crocodilians survived (and survive) as well.