That change inside it world climate Continue to mass extinction suffered during Triassic-Jurassicwhich wiped out many large vertebrates, were circumstances favorable to the first awakening dinosaur.

A sauropod-like dinosaur, which became a giant herbivorous species in recent times JurassicAs Diplodocus and brachiosauruswas able to expand and expand into new territories as the planet warmed after the extinction, 201 million years ago.

This new evidence was provided by a study conducted by British, Brazilian and German scientists, based on a mathematical model published by Current Biology.

The team compared computer models of prehistoric global climate conditions, such as temperature and precipitation, with data at various dinosaur sites taken from sources such as the Paleobiology Database.

With this data they showed that sauropods and similar animals, with their long tails, necks and small heads, were the runaway succession of a turbulent evolutionary period, he explained. University of Birmingham (United Kingdom), one of the signatories.

“What we see in the data shows that rather than dinosaurs being outdone by other large vertebrates, it was variations in climatic conditions that limited their diversity. But once these conditions changed at the border between the Triassic and Jurassic, they were able to evolve,” said one of the researchers. Emma Dunne.

The result was “somewhat surprising” to the team because, says Dunne, sauropods were “very picky from the start: later in their evolution, they continued to live in warmer areas and avoided the polar regions.”

Co-author of the work Richard Butler, from the same university, highlighted that “climate change appears to have been critical in driving the evolution of the first dinosaurs.”

The team now envisions using the same technique to understand the role of climate in the next 120 million years in dinosaur history.

With information from EFE