Did insects kill the dinosaurs?
Photo by Sixty4Graphics
Think asteroid impacts or volcanic eruptions killed off the dinosaurs? A new books says to think much smaller…
(Feb. 4, 2008) The rise and evolution of voracious, pathogen-infected insects was an important contributor to the demise of the dinosaurs, says George Poinar, University of Oregon zoologist and co-author of the new book, What Bugged the Dinosaurs?: Insects, Disease, and Death in the Cretaceous.
Evidence for this was captured in almost life-like detail, in the form of insects that were fossilized in amber dating from the time when dinosaurs disappeared.
Amber, a semi-precious stone, begins to form as sap oozing from a tree. Tiny animals and materials can get trapped in this natural embalming agent, and appear in nearly perfect, three-dimensional form millions of years later.
There is evidence that some catastrophic events, such as a major asteroid or lava flows, occurred during the time of the dinosaur’s extinction, a period known as the famous “K-T Boundary,” or the line between the Cretaceous and Tertiary, about 65 million years ago.
But these explanations don’t account for the slow, gradual decline of dinosaur populations over many thousands of years, and how some dinosaurs survived for thousands of years after the K-T Boundary.
The evolution of insects, especially the slow-but-overwhelming threat posed by new disease carriers, the authors argue, provide a plausible and effective explanation for what finished the dinosaurs off.
“We don’t suggest that the appearance of biting insects and the spread of disease are the only things that relate to dinosaur extinction,” Poinar said. “Other geologic and catastrophic events certainly played a role. But by themselves, such events do not explain a process that in reality took a very, very long time, perhaps millions of years. Insects and diseases do provide that explanation.”
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Insect attack may have finished off dinosaurs
Insects and the diseases they spread will cause our human extinction too. This will occur due to climate change.
Immunity is always an important issue to discuss. What can we do impove and strenghten our status of immunity?
Immunity is always an important issue to discuss. What can we do improve and strenghten our status of immunity?