Humans’ ancestors, dogs, bats may have coexisted with dinosaurs – study
Primates, whom humans evolved from, rabbits and hares, dogs and cats were shown to have evolved just before the mass extinction, so they coexisted with dinosaurs.
Scientists have spent a long time debating whether early humans may have been present before non-avian dinosaurs went extinct, but a new study published on June 27 may finalize the debate.
The peer-reviewed research, published in the academic journal Current Biology, used statistical analysis of fossils to determine whether placental mammals lived before dinosaurs’ extinctions.
Fossils of placental mammals have been found in rocks that date less than 66 million years, after the time when an asteroid hit the earth causing mass extinctions. It is based on this that the researchers believe that a group of placental mammals evolved after the mass extinction. However, some fossils have been found that pre-date the asteroid event, suggesting that the placental mammals coexisted with dinosaurs and diversified, surviving and evolving after the asteroid.