How Mammals Survived the K-T Event

For nearly 200 million years, dinosaurs reigned supreme. They were spread out across most locations on the planet, and there were no creatures that could challenge their domination except, of course, other dinosaurs. Yet, some 65 million years ago, an asteroid impact managed to wipe them all out. Some studies suggest that a few managed to endure for longer, but the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) extinction event is widely considered to be the time when their kind lost domination over the world. However, some small mammals survived, and researchers have often wondered why.

The thing about small mammals surviving is not their size. Many researchers have proposed that these creatures managed to endure because their reduced stature allowed them to escape the perilous consequences of the asteroid impact. However, there were many species of dinosaurs that couldn't even reach your knee in height, and they were extinguished too. So, the mystery of their amazing survival capabilities has endured to this day. Many ideas and hypotheses on how they managed to escape have been set forth, but none of them has managed to explain the phenomenon completely.

“They were better at escaping the heat. It was the huge amount of thermal heat released by the meteor strike that was the main cause of the K-T extinction,” Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) senior research associate in geosciences Russ Graham explains, quoted by PhysOrg. But the devastating impact, and its immediate effects, did not wipe out the dinosaurs alone, but a large number of other species as well, covering all animal and plant families. Graham believes that the secret weapons small mammals had were their underground burrows, and the marine ecosystems they inhabited.

“Even if large herbivorous dinosaurs had managed to survive the initial meteor strike, they would have had nothing to eat, because most of the Earth’s above-ground plant material had been destroyed,” the expert adds. Still, it is widely believed that most large dinosaurs perished in the flames that ensued immediately after the asteroid struck. The impact is said to have happened in Mexico. The culprit for the extinction was most likely a six-mile-wide meteor. Experts say that the aquatic plants and insects that small mammals were accustomed to eating endured after the impact, so these creatures had the advantage over herbivorous and carnivorous dinosaurs.