Mammals Put Brawn Before Brains to Survive Post-dinosaur World
Published:07 Apr.2022 Source:University of Edinburgh
For the first 10 million years after dinosaurs died out, mammals prioritised boosting their body size to adapt to radical shifts in the make-up of Earth's animal kingdom, researchers say. Their findings show that the size of mammals' brains, compared with their body weight, decreased following a catastrophic asteroid impact 66 million years ago that ended the reign of dinosaurs. It had been widely thought that mammals' relative brain sizes generally increased over time in the wake of the wipeout.
While much is known about the evolution of the brains of modern-day mammals, it has been -- until now -- unclear how they developed in the first few million years following the mass extinction. A team from the University of Edinburgh has shed light on the mystery by performing CT scans on newly discovered fossils from the 10-million-year period after the extinction, called the Paleocene.