In Brief

Mass Extinction Not so Bad for Plankton?

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Asteroid Dinosaurs Art
An artist's impression of a giant space rock slamming into Earth 65 million years ago near what is now Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. A consortium of scientists now says this was indeed what caused the end of the Age of Dinosaurs. (Image credit: NASA/Donald E. Davis)

Many marine plankton species went extinct during the mass die-off of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. The worldwide rain of tiny dead shells littered marine sediments from the period.

But at least one plankton-eating animal appears to contradict this evidence of a mass plankton extinction, a new study reports. Fossil records of coral-like marine creatures called bryozoans, which survived the killer asteroid impact, show little change across the extinction boundary. The bottom-dwelling animals live in colonies, either erect on the seafloor or encrusted on other organisms such as seaweed. Bryozoan's feather-like filters catch passing plankton and other food particles as they drift past.

Read more: Geology

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Becky Oskin
Becky Oskin
Contributing Writer
Becky Oskin covers Earth science, climate change and space, as well as general science topics. Becky was a science reporter at Live Science and The Pasadena Star-News; she has freelanced for New Scientist and the American Institute of Physics. She earned a master's degree in geology from Caltech, a bachelor's degree from Washington State University, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz.