Dinosaur extinction linked to the rise of grapes

Recent research has led scientists to believe that grapes prospered after the end of dinosaurs.

The earliest known grape seed fossils were found in India and are 66 million years old. Its not a coincidence that grapes appeared in the fossil records 66 million years ago – that’s around the time a huge asteroid hit the Earth, triggering a massive extinction that altered the course of life on the planet.

Dinosaurs dominated the world until then, when the Chicxulub asteroid impacted the earth, creating a huge shock wave and changed the climate for centuries.

The death of dinosaurs created opportunities for mammals to fill the void ultimately leading to the rise of humans. But it is now thought that grape seeds did not flourish until after the impact.

The team from the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago discovered that there were fossilised grape seeds from 60 to 19 million years ago in the neotropical regions of Columbia, Panama and Peru.

The researchers described the “remarkably diverse” plant communities of the neotropics, and what they believe to be the “earliest evidence” of vitaceae – the flowering family from which grapevines originate – in the Western Hemisphere.

Essentially, grapes were able to thrive because dinosaurs were no longer present to stamp on plants, trample through trees and destroy the plant life of the forest. Without their presence, forests became more crowded and plant life was able to thrive, meaning that vine plants, including grapevines, were able to climb through the trees and survive.