New Theory Suggests Dinosaurs Were Already Dying When Asteroid Hit (phys.org)

The new "biotic revenge hypothesis" suggests that dinosaurs were killed off by toxic plants. (And an inability to recognize the taste of a toxic plant.) the gmr summarizes a new paper reported at Phys.org: The dinosaur population had been drastically decreasing before the asteroid impact, [and] the appearance of the first flowering plants -- angiosperms -- in the fossil record coincides with the gradual disappearance of the dinosaurs... The scientists concluded that though the asteroid played a role in the extinction of dinosaurs, the "plants had already placed severe strain on the species."
Crocodiles (believed to be descended from dinosaurs) also can't recognize the taste of toxic plants -- the researchers tested 10 different species. And they point out that not only did dinosaurs start to disappear before the asteroid impact -- they continued to "gradually disappear for millions of years afterward."

Comments

Crocodiles are dinosaurs - since when?

[willy_me]

A quick quote from Wikipedia,

As such, birds were the only dinosaur lineage to survive the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event 66 million years ago.

Crocodiles are not decedents of dinosaurs - they are reptiles. If this paper can not even see this then I can not put much weight into their theory.

Re:Crocodiles are dinosaurs - since when?

[AJWM]

Pro tip: don't believe everything you read in Wikipedia.

That's a vast oversimplification -- sure, trace a cladogram back far enough and you'll see something called Reptilia as the ancestor of both dinosaurs (and birds) and things ancestral to turtles, snakes and crocodilians. Dinosaurs are as much reptiles as birds are (indeed, birds are considered avian dinosaurs.)

Trace mammals back far enough and you come to synapsids aka "mammal-like reptiles" -- which aren't reptiles either.