Do you ever wonder why dinosaurs struggled to survive in the tropics? Well, wonder no more as scientists revealed the reasons why dinosaurs failed to populate in tropical regions.

For years, it has been a lingering mystery why ancient creatures like dinosaurs kept their distance from the tropics. In a recent scientific research, Discovery News revealed that scientists cited extreme environmental conditions, such as raging wildfires, droughts, food shortages and climate change as the main reasons why dinosaurs failed to populate in the tropical regions for over 30 million years after they first emerged.

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In the new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday, an international team of paleontologists discovered that extreme and unpredictable climate changes drove large, warm-blooded dinosaurian herbivores away from the tropics.

As said by Natural History Museum of Utah paleontology curator, University of Utah professor and co-author of the study, Randall Irmis, the climate conditions were too harsh for the dinosaurs to exist since there was not enough and dependable plant food available there.

Aside from the extreme climate conditions, experts also suggested that dinosaurs may have warned the world about the impact of greenhouse gas emissions, which further explains why dinosaurs failed to populate in the tropics, Daily Mirror has learned.

During the Late Triassic period, atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels were four to six times than they are today. "If we continue along our present course, similar conditions in a high CO2 world may develop and suppress low-latitude ecosystems," Irmis said.

The study also showed that in a high CO2 world, the tropical climate swung dramatically between wet and dry years. During the dry periods, vegetation died and sparks raged wildfires that burned at temperatures as high as 600 degrees Celsius, which resulted to more damages to the plants and the soil.

"The conditions would have been something similar to the arid western United States today, although there would have been trees and smaller plants near streams and rivers and forests during humid times, University of Southampton lead scientist and geochemist Dr. Jessica Whiteside said. "The fluctuating and harsh climate with widespread wildfires meant that only small two-legged carnivorous dinosaurs, such as Coelophysis, could survive."

Meanwhile, scientists have said that the study, which focused on Chinle Formation rocks that were deposited between 205 and 215 million years ago at Ghost Ranch in northern New Mexico where a large number of Triassic fossils have been found, did not only reveal the reasons why dinosaurs failed to populate in the tropics, it also gave humans a better and improved understanding of the consequences of climate change, CBS News reported. 

Experts also added that the hardships faced by the dinosaurs in the tropics are threatening because it indicated that the challenges could impact future ecosystems. It can also "fundamentally reshape" multiple animal communities, including humans. And the role played by the climate and other environmental changes were indeed significant in the evolution of dinosaurs.

TagsDinosaurs, Prehistoric Times, Greenhouse gases, Science