After Dinosaurs’ Demise Mammals Got 1,000 Times Bigger !!!

November 25, 2010 by Nataly in Science

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New research, published in the journal Science, shows that the great dinosaur die-off made way for mammals to explode in size.

“When dinosaurs went extinct, maximum mammal size was between one and 10 kilograms (2 to 22 pounds), in that size range,” said researcher Jessica Theodor of the University of Calgary in Canada.

After the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago, mammals started growing faster. According to the research that’s because there were no other animals around to eat the vegetation.

Jessica Theodor said that when mammals shared the land with dinosaurs, the biggest mammals that were around were about 10 kilos. “And then, 25 million years after that, the largest-size mammals that are around are a thousand times bigger, they’re 10,000 kilos,” she said, adding that mammals grew to up to a maximum of 17 tons.

“Nobody has ever demonstrated that this pattern is really there. People have talked about it, but nobody has ever gone back and done the math,” Theodor said. “We went through every time period and said OK, for this group of mammals, what’s the biggest one? And then we estimated its body mass.”