How the dinosaurs rule over the Cold Climate

How the dinosaurs rule over the Cold Climate, New research finds that dinosaurs were already adapted to living in cold climates before the end-Triassic mass extinction. But how?

Whenever the words Dinosaurs and their extinction come to mind, all of us know how asteroids caused the dinosaurs’ mass extinction. But how did this huge extinction event which happened ways more than millions of years ago push forward dinosaurs to the highest point of ecology?

About 201 million years which is the end of the Triassic period, Earth witnessed a series of exceptional and serious annihilation events which are enormous volcanic eruptions. Some volcanic eruptions lasted for decades. These eruptions tossed huge amounts of ash and sulfur into the environment, hindering sunlight and causing the temperature to drop significantly.

Due to this sudden climate change, the planet Earth becomes a greenhouse. The level of CO2 concentration reached between 1000 and 6000 parts per million, which are 16 times more than the present day. Approximately one-third of species at that time were extinct and most of the marine life was lost. The dinosaurs that survived were the early dinosaurs.

The Reason how the dinosaurs rule over the Cold Climate-

Many researchers pondered, how some early dinosaurs not only survived, but also flourished during an unstable era? In The Journal Science Advances, the latest paper cited the reason that the Triassic dinosaurs lived in a cold environment way before the volcanic eruptions. Thus, they were well-adapted to the harsh cold winter contrary unlike the species of Earth. This proves to be a great advantage to the dinosaurs and helped them thrive in the mass extinction and also survived on Earth for about 135 million years.

The Polar Dinosaurs-

Researchers think that, about 230 million years ago, the dinosaurs mostly appeared in Southern latitudes. At that time, Earth has one supercontinent called Pangaea. The dinosaurs concentrated in polar latitudes, as most of the Earth was warm with high CO2 concentration and zero sunlight. Although there is no evidence that dinosaurs live on poles, the scientists in Junggar Basin Lakes, China formed about 206 million years ago, suggesting that around 4 million years much before volcanic eruptions, the area was already frozen. The researchers also found dinosaurs’ footprints near the shore, this justifies that the dinosaurs lived in cold areas.

What led the dinosaurs to survive in cold weather, and how did the dinosaurs keep them warm?

To survive in cold weather, insulation must be required. The Triassic dinosaurs had some kind of insulation in the form of Proto-feathers.

The researcher suggests that the Triassic dinosaurs have proto-feathers that insulated them in great winters.

Guide in a New Era

After withstanding the winters, the dinosaurs establish ecological dominance. This placed them to thrive on the land until one more mass extinction about 135 million years later wiped out most of them. These are mostly theories, we need substantial evidence that the dinosaurs have proto-feathers in the Triassic era that helped them reign over changing climate. The footprints near Junggar Basin Lakes prove to be the first stepping stone that dinosaurs must have lived in polar regions.

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