Egg-laying may very well have been the downfall of the dinosaurs, a new study shows. Since there are limits to how large an egg can be, due to the fact that they require a great number of the mother’s resources to produce, the newly hatched offspring of dinosaurs was astonishingly small in comparison to their parents. Not so for mammals, who’s offspring could be born much larger. While most species occupy one ecological niche, the widely varying sizes of dinosaurs had to pass through several niches before reaching adult hood, putting them at a competitive disadvantage.
