Last roar of the dinosaurs

Brusatte and researchers collecting palaeomagnetic samples from the late Cretaceous at the Naashoibito Member in the San Juan Basin in New Mexico. A trove of specimens from New Mexico may help settle a long-running argument about the diversity of dinosaurs before their extinction. — Steve Brusatte/The New York Times

FOR years, we’ve told the end-of-dinosaurs story as if they were already fading away – lumbering toward oblivion until a cosmic knockout finished the job.

But a fresh haul of fossils from New Mexico is flipping that script.