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Why did the dinosaurs become extinct? Could cholecalciferol (vitamin D(3)) deficiency be the answer?
Palaeontological deductions from the fossil remnants of extinct dinosaurs tell us much about their classification into species as well as about their physiological and behavioural characteristics. Geological evidence indicates that dinosaurs became extinct at the boundary between the Cretaceous and...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Cambridge University Press
2019
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6425225/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30911383 http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jns.2019.7 |
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author | Fraser, D. R. |
author_facet | Fraser, D. R. |
author_sort | Fraser, D. R. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Palaeontological deductions from the fossil remnants of extinct dinosaurs tell us much about their classification into species as well as about their physiological and behavioural characteristics. Geological evidence indicates that dinosaurs became extinct at the boundary between the Cretaceous and Paleogene eras, about 66 million years ago, at a time when there was worldwide environmental change resulting from the impact of a large celestial object with the Earth and/or from vast volcanic eruptions. However, apart from the presumption that climate change and interference with food supply contributed to their extinction, no biological mechanism has been suggested to explain why such a diverse range of terrestrial vertebrates ceased to exist. One of perhaps several contributing mechanisms comes by extrapolating from the physiology of the avian descendants of dinosaurs. This raises the possibility that cholecalciferol (vitamin D(3)) deficiency of developing embryos in dinosaur eggs could have caused their death before hatching, thus extinguishing the entire family of dinosaurs through failure to reproduce. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6425225 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | Cambridge University Press |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-64252252019-03-25 Why did the dinosaurs become extinct? Could cholecalciferol (vitamin D(3)) deficiency be the answer? Fraser, D. R. J Nutr Sci Perspectives in Nutritional Science Palaeontological deductions from the fossil remnants of extinct dinosaurs tell us much about their classification into species as well as about their physiological and behavioural characteristics. Geological evidence indicates that dinosaurs became extinct at the boundary between the Cretaceous and Paleogene eras, about 66 million years ago, at a time when there was worldwide environmental change resulting from the impact of a large celestial object with the Earth and/or from vast volcanic eruptions. However, apart from the presumption that climate change and interference with food supply contributed to their extinction, no biological mechanism has been suggested to explain why such a diverse range of terrestrial vertebrates ceased to exist. One of perhaps several contributing mechanisms comes by extrapolating from the physiology of the avian descendants of dinosaurs. This raises the possibility that cholecalciferol (vitamin D(3)) deficiency of developing embryos in dinosaur eggs could have caused their death before hatching, thus extinguishing the entire family of dinosaurs through failure to reproduce. Cambridge University Press 2019-03-19 /pmc/articles/PMC6425225/ /pubmed/30911383 http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jns.2019.7 Text en © The Author(s) 2019 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Perspectives in Nutritional Science Fraser, D. R. Why did the dinosaurs become extinct? Could cholecalciferol (vitamin D(3)) deficiency be the answer? |
title | Why did the dinosaurs become extinct? Could cholecalciferol (vitamin D(3)) deficiency be the answer? |
title_full | Why did the dinosaurs become extinct? Could cholecalciferol (vitamin D(3)) deficiency be the answer? |
title_fullStr | Why did the dinosaurs become extinct? Could cholecalciferol (vitamin D(3)) deficiency be the answer? |
title_full_unstemmed | Why did the dinosaurs become extinct? Could cholecalciferol (vitamin D(3)) deficiency be the answer? |
title_short | Why did the dinosaurs become extinct? Could cholecalciferol (vitamin D(3)) deficiency be the answer? |
title_sort | why did the dinosaurs become extinct? could cholecalciferol (vitamin d(3)) deficiency be the answer? |
topic | Perspectives in Nutritional Science |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6425225/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30911383 http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jns.2019.7 |
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