The extinction of the dinosaurs helped the expansion of… grapes

The fossilized grape seeds that were used to forge this thesis are between 19 and 60 million years old. They were found in Colombia, Panama, and Peru. They are also the oldest traces of these fruits ever found in the South American region. According to the authors of the paper, this shows that after the dinosaurs became extinct, grapes began to spread around the world.

“Closed” forests helped

Such discoveries do not come easily. It is rare for fruits to be preserved as fossils. More often, the analysis of such cases is related to the pips – seeds, which are more susceptible to this process. In the case of grapes, the oldest find, discovered in India, has date back 66 million years ago. It was around this time that a huge asteroid was supposed to hit Earth, causing the mass extinction of the dinosaurs. How could this be connected to grapes?

Among the creatures that ruled at that time, many dinosaurs reached enormous sizes. Often, these animals also ate plants, which could have influenced a more open forest structure “cut through” by the migrations of these giants. However, when the ancestors of our lovely chicken largely died out, in many places more crowded structures began to form, such as undergrowth but also a kind of canopy hiding some of the plants under a layer of branches and leaves. It is from this period in Earth’s history that scientists have noted the growth of plant traces, such as grapes, that used vines.

The seed itself, found by scientists in South America, is quite small. Initially, it could be identified mainly by its specific shape and size, as well as other characteristic features. However, it was only a detailed analysis using computed tomography that helped confirm his identityć. The search continued, and a total of nine “new” grape varieties were found, originating from Colombia, Panama and Peru.