Researchers believe the destruction of the rainforests kicked off an evolutionary burst amongst reptiles and inadvertently paved the way for the rise of dinosaurs 100 million years later.
And the scientists at Royal Holloway, University of London, and Bristol University warned that the discovery is a chilling message that humanity could be wiped off the face of the earth if today’s Amazon rainforest is allowed to disappear.
- Global warming destroyed rainforests 300 million years ago (telegraph.co.uk)
- Rainforest collapse drove reptile evolution (eurekalert.org)
- Environmentalists ‘exaggerated’ threat to tropical rainforests from global warming (dailymail.co.uk)