Dinosaurs declined long before asteroid impact

​London: Dinosaurs were already in a decline millions of years before the asteroid impact that finally caused their extinction, a new research revealed.

Some scientists had previously thought that dinosaurs were flourishing right up until they were wiped out by a massive asteroid impact 66 million years ago.

However, in the new study published on Monday, British researchers found dinosaur species were actually going extinct at a faster pace than new ones were emerging from 50 million years before the asteroid hit what is now the Gulf of Mexico.

"We were not expecting this result. While the asteroid impact is still the prime candidate for the dinosaurs' final disappearance, it is clear that they were already past their prime in an evolutionary sense," Manabu Sakamoto of the University of Reading, who led the research, said.

"This suggests that for tens of millions of years before their ultimate demise, dinosaurs were beginning to lose their edge as the dominant species on Earth."