'Our study suggests that it was probably the interplay among many other ecological features, including their body size, diets, behaviors and ecospace plasticity that prepared certain smaller animals for greater survivorship after the asteroid impact,' said paleontologist and study co-author Alfio Alessandro Chiarenza of the University of Vigo in Spain. 'When the asteroid hit, it threw everything into chaos and dinosaurs could not deal with the sudden change to a world they were so accustomed to,' Brusatte said.

The fact that the dinosaurs were so well adapted to their climate and environment may have been their undoing.

'We can now say with conviction: dinosaurs were going strong, with stable ecosystems, right until the asteroid suddenly killed them off.' 'There has been this nagging thought that dinosaurs may have been on their way out anyway, in the midst of a long-term decline, when the asteroid put them out of their misery,' said University of Edinburgh paleontologist and study co-author Steve Brusatte.

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