Dinosaur Extinction May Be A Result Of Slow Hatching

It is debatable whether Dinosaurs where warm blooded animals or cold blooded reptiles however its clear that they laid and hatched their eggs. Reportedly the huge creature took almost six months and in some cases even more to hatch its egg. Some scientists believe this slow rate might be responsible for their ultimate extinction.

According to Telegraph Scientists at Florida state university and University of Calgary claim it took great amount of time by the dinosaur eggs to hatch based on the canine marks of embryos and babies. The teeth grew a new microscopic layer just like tree rings each day and by counting them, the paleontologists have come to know about the time taken by the eggs to hatch which roughly spanned from three to six months.

Gregory Erickson professor of biological science at Florida said they are pretty much sure that their findings have implications on understanding why dinosaurs went extinct but other amphibians, birds and mammals survived and nurtured themselves.

Bird's eggs of the same period took almost 11 to 85 days to hatch which gave them an upper hand over the dinosaurs. According to Darla Zelenitsky Assistant Professor of Geoscience at the University of Calgary, if there is any similarity between the dinosaurs and the birds and reptiles in this respect, it can be understood from examining the embryos.

As per the New York Times report the longer incubation period lead to slow reproduction which acted against the dinosaurs when an asteroid hit the planet 65 million years ago leading to their extinction sparing the birds and other amphibians. The huge asteroid may have destroyed all these eggs and the slowness in hatching didn't allow the Dinosaurs to outlast the calamity.

The six month that the Dinosaurs were inside the egg followed by their 'growing-up' period made them very vulnerable to the external threats. Longer incubation period was also the main cause to be blamed for the maturity time taken by a dinosaur to grow to full size. This is also termed as another reason by the paleontologists that lead to their mass extinction.

David J Varrichio at Montana State University said this research of the fossilized eggs and their maturity time might act as a pioneer for the new generation research providing a new line of evidence. Another Doctor, Dr. Erickson believes the dinosaurs found themselves in a problem and that problem bad no solution.