Mozzies Caused Dino Death

By Lindsey Nield

Most people are familiar with the idea that 65 million years ago an asteroid hit the earth and wiped out the dinosaurs. But it would seem that the period over which the dinosaurs died out – known as the “K-T boundary” – is too long for this to be the whole story. Now the authors of a new book are arguing that biting insects may have brought down the mighty dinosaurs.

The late Cretaceous Period (100 to 65 million years ago) was when disease-causing bugs starting hitching a ride inside biting insects. The climate was very warm at this time causing a bit of a mating frenzy and the little biting blighters spread everywhere munching on everything in sight. Not only did the dinosaurs start feeling rather unwell but they were gradually running out of food as the other animals and plant life became prey to disease too. If this is the case, it would explain why dinosaurs died out over a relatively long time scale, and how the giant rock falling from the sky was just the nail in the coffin.

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The claims are made in the new book, What Bugged the Dinosaurs? Insects, Disease and Death in the Cretaceous by entomologists George and Roberta Poinar.

Now, I don’t want to be alarmist, but our climate is warming up once again and research has shown that insect species living in warmer areas are more likely to undergo rapid population growth. Mosquitoes, for example, are no longer just those nasty buzzing things we have to worry about when we go on holiday, but they’re packing their bags and travelling themselves, expanding the areas in which malaria is present and bringing it north towards the UK and US.

The most severe predictions of current global warming estimate that by the start of the next century global temperatures will have increased by almost 8oC. This will bring us pretty much in line with conditions in the late Cretaceous. We can’t yet know which species of insects will thrive in our changing world but you have to wonder if the next inconvenient truth we have to face is that the midges will inherit the Earth after a little snack of Homo sapiens.

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