The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World: The Definitive Dinosaur Encyclopedia with Stunning Illustrations, Embark on a Prehistoric Quest!

by Steve Brusatte

Dinosaurs had none of these advantages. Most of them were big, and they couldn’t easily scamper into burrows to wait out the firestorm. They couldn’t hide underwater, either. They were parts of food chains with big plant-eating species at the base, so when the sun was blocked and photosynthesis shut down and plants started to die, they felt the domino effects. Plus, most dinosaurs had fairly specialized diets—they ate meat or particular types of plants, without the flexibility that came with the more adventurous palates of the surviving mammals. And they had other handicaps as well. Many of them were probably warm-blooded or at least had a high metabolism, so they required a lot of food. They couldn’t hunker down for months without a meal, like some amphibians and reptiles. They laid eggs, which took between three and six months to hatch, about double the time for birds’ eggs. Then, after the eggs hatched, it took dinosaur youngsters many years to grow into adults, a long and tortured adolescence that would have made them particularly vulnerable to environmental changes.