That’s how they’re telling the story now.
From U Bath:
Over 90 per cent of mammal species were wiped out by the same asteroid that killed the dinosaurs in the Cretaceous period 66 million years ago, significantly more than previously thought. A study by researchers at the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath and published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology, reviewed all mammal species known from the end of the Cretaceous period in North America. Their results showed that over 93 per cent became extinct across the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary, but that they also recovered far more quickly than previously thought.
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Following the asteroid hit, most of the plants and animals would have died, so the survivors probably fed on insects eating dead plants and animals. With so little food, only small species survived. The biggest animals to survive on land would have been no larger than a cat. The fact that that most mammals were small helps explain why they were able to survive. Yet the researchers found that mammals also recovered more rapidly than previously thought, not only gaining back the lost diversity in species quickly but soon doubling the number of species found before the extinction. The recovery took just 300,000 years, a short time in evolutionary terms. Dr Longrich added: “Because mammals did so well after the extinction, we have tended to assume that it didn’t hit them as hard. However our analysis shows that the mammals were hit harder than most groups of animals, such as lizards, turtles, crocodilians, but they proved to be far more adaptable in the aftermath. “It wasn’t low extinction rates, but the ability to recover and adapt in the aftermath that led the mammals to take over.”
Surprisingly, the recovery from the extinction took place differently in different parts of the continent. The species found in Montana were distinct from those in nearby Wyoming, for example. “You might expect to see the same few survivors all across the continent. But that’s not what we found,” said Longrich. “After this extinction event, there was an explosion of diversity, and it was driven by having different evolutionary experiments going on simultaneously in different locations. “This may have helped drive the recovery. With so many different species evolving in different directions in different parts of the world, evolution was more likely to stumble across new evolutionary paths. More.
Note: “different evolutionary experiments”? “evolution was more likely to stumble across new evolutionary paths” ? So “evolution” is a person now? Well yes, of course. Always has been. The no-design Designer.
See also: Why weren’t there many dinosaur species?
and
“Spectacular” convergence between ancient mammal and dinosaur
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