Late-surviving New Mexican dinosaurs illuminate high end-Cretaceous diversity and provinciality

It has long been debated whether non-avian dinosaurs went extinct abruptly or gradually at the end-Cretaceous (66 million years ago), because their fossil record at this time is mostly limited to northern North America. We constrain a dinosaur-rich unit to the south, the Naashoibito Member in New Mexico, to the very latest Cretaceous (~66.4 to 66.0 million years), preserving some of the last-known non-avian dinosaurs. Ecological modeling shows that North American terrestrial vertebrates maintained high diversity and endemism in the latest Cretaceous and early Paleogene, with bioprovinces shaped by temperature and geography. This counters the notion of a low-diversity cross-continental fauna and suggests that dinosaurs were diverse and partitioned into regionally distinct assemblages during the final few hundred thousand years before the end-Cretaceous asteroid impact.

Authors

Institutions

Publication Details

Journal
Science
Published
2025-10-23
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adw3282
Citations
2
Primary Topic
Evolution and Paleontology Studies
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
8.66
Controls
|||
ALL TIME
JAN
FEB
MAR
APR
MAY
JUN
JUL
AUG
SEP
OCT
article

Late-surviving New Mexican dinosaurs illuminate high end-Cretaceous diversity and provinciality

Adam J. Davis, Alfio Alessandro Chiarenza, Caitlin E. Leslie, Daniel J. Peppe et al.
2 citations
Science
Evolution and Paleontology Studies
8.66
article

Late-surviving New Mexican dinosaurs illuminate high end-Cretaceous diversity and provinciality

Adam J. Davis, Alfio Alessandro Chiarenza, Caitlin E. Leslie, Daniel J. Peppe, C. Will Fenley, Matthew T. Heizler, Sarah L. Shelley, Andrew G. Flynn, Stephen L. Brusatte, Ross Secord, Anne Weil, Jorge García‐Girón, Thomas E. Williamson
article en
2 citations

Abstract

It has long been debated whether non-avian dinosaurs went extinct abruptly or gradually at the end-Cretaceous (66 million years ago), because their fossil record at this time is mostly limited to northern North America. We constrain a dinosaur-rich unit to the south, the Naashoibito Member in New Mexico, to the very latest Cretaceous (~66.4 to 66.0 million years), preserving some of the last-known non-avian dinosaurs. Ecological modeling shows that North American terrestrial vertebrates maintained high diversity and endemism in the latest Cretaceous and early Paleogene, with bioprovinces shaped by temperature and geography. This counters the notion of a low-diversity cross-continental fauna and suggests that dinosaurs were diverse and partitioned into regionally distinct assemblages during the final few hundred thousand years before the end-Cretaceous asteroid impact.

ScienceVol. 390(6771)
New Mexico State University (US), Smithsonian Institution (US), University of Nebraska–Lincoln (US), American Museum of Natural History (US), National Museum of Natural History (US), Baylor University (US), New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (US), ThermoAnalytics (United States) (US), New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science (US), New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, University College London (GB), University of Lincoln (GB), Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences (US), Universidad de León (ES), ExxonMobil (United States) (US), University of Oulu (FI), University of Edinburgh (GB)
Openalex Percentile: Top 3%
Evolution and Paleontology Studies
8.66
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
AI Navigator

Ask Laika to Summarize, Analyze, and Connect papers live on the map.

Summarize Papers & Methodologies

Extract key findings, datasets, and comparative methods across publications.

Benchmark Rankings & Visual Analytics

Rank top research institutions, authors, funders, topics, and journals by Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) and paper volume with instant charts.

Connect Distant Disciplines

Bridge topological clusters on the map to find hidden collaborative intersections.