If you looked up 66 million years ago you might have seen, for a split second, a bright light as a mountain-sized asteroid burned through the atmosphere and smashed into Earth. It was springtime and the literal end of an era, the Mesozoic.
If you somehow survived the initial impact, you would have witnessed the devastation that followed. Raging firestorms, megatsunamis, and a nuclear winter lasting months to years. The 180-million-year reign of non-avian dinosaurs was over in the blink of an eye, as well as at least 75% of the species who shared the planet with them.
Following this event, known as the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction (K-Pg), a new dawn emerged for Earth. Ecosystems bounced back, but the life inhabiting them was different.
Many iconic pre-K-Pg species can only be seen in a museum. The formidable Tyrannosaurus rex, the Velociraptor, and the winged dragons of the Quetzalcoatlus genus could not survive the asteroid and are confined to deep history. But if you take a walk outside and smell the roses, you will be in the presence of ancient lineages that blossomed in the ashes of K-Pg.
