Some people think that the dinosaur extinction happened due to their failure to adapt to the changing environment. In reality, dinosaurs were diverse for more than 100 million years, with fossils found in North and South America, Asia, Europe, Africa and even Antarctica.

Although some argue that this diversity was in decline, fossils show that dinosaurs remained widespread, common and diverse until 66 million years ago, when an asteroid struck the earth in what is now Mexico. Debris from the impact blocked out the sun and plunged the world into darkness. The disappearance of the dinosaurs wasn’t because of a decline in diversity – it was a cosmic accident. If the asteroid had deviated by a fraction of a degree, dinosaurs might still be roaming the planet today.

However, they are not completely extinct. The asteroid did wipe out most dinosaurs like the T. rex and Triceratops, but a handful of small, feathered dinosaurs, probably less than a dozen species, survived. They were birds – small, flying cousins of T. rex and Velociraptor and the direct descendants of the carnivorous dinosaurs. And they not only survived but thrived, evolving into some 10,000 species of birds.

As more research is carried out, the more is revealed about dinosaurs and how they might have looked. One main example is how T. rex looked – many think that T. rex stood upright. However, scientists know that they must have held their bodies horizontally. Another myth about T. rex is that it was a fast runner. However, scientists think that it didn’t go much faster than a jogging human, based on the stress running would have put on its massive foot bones.

Read more about Dinosaur myths here: https://www.rd.com/culture/dinosaur-myths/