Flowering Plants Were Already Thriving before Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid Hit

Jun 29, 2026 - 12:45
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Flowering Plants Were Already Thriving before Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid Hit
Reconstruction of the forest floor of the 74.6 million-year-old Dori’s Tuff flora, featuring hypothetical angiosperm-disperser interactions. The plants depicted, including the foliage, fruits, seeds and flowers, were illustrated in life position based on the fossil plants found at the site and their inferred growth habits. The mammalian and dinosaur seed dispersers depicted were based on the known fauna from the broader region during the Late Campanian age of the Cretaceous period. Image credit: Brian Engh, livingrelicproductions.com.

Fossils from the Jose Creek Formation in New Mexico reveal that angiosperms (flowering plants) had built dense, fruit-bearing forests nearly 75 million years ago -- nearly 9 million years before the end-Cretaceous mass extinction that killed the dinosaurs -- challenging a long-held evolutionary narrative about how they came to dominate the planet.

The post Flowering Plants Were Already Thriving before Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid Hit appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

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