Luck gave dinosaurs their edge

By comparing early dinosaurs to their closest competitors, the curuotarsans, Steve Brusatte of the American Museum of Natural History and colleagues have found that dinosaurs had no special ability to dominate the landscape for 160 million years. Curuotarsans looked better during the Triassic, having twice the disparity (or variation in body plans) and evolving at similar rates until rapid global warming spurred extinction of most groups (except crocodiles) while nearly all dinosaur groups survived.

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