New Delhi

Scientists have discovered one of the oldest known grapes in a fossilised form which shows they spread far and wide after the extinction of dinosaurs. So, if you are a fan of snacking on raisins or sipping your pain or happiness through a glass of wine, thank the extinction of dinosaurs for it. 

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The researchers found fossil grape seeds that range from 60 to 19 million years ago in Colombia, Panama and Peru. The earliest known grapes are said to be from India and are about 66 million years ago on the evolutionary scale. 

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"These are the oldest grapes ever found in this part of the world, and they are a few million years younger than the oldest ones ever found on the other side of the planet," says Fabiany Herrera, an assistant curator of paleobotany at the Field Museum in Chicago's Negaunee Integrative Research Center and the lead author of the paper. 

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"This discovery is important because it shows that after the extinction of the dinosaurs, grapes really started to spread across the world."

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Scientists point out that it is not a coincidence that grapes appeared in the fossil record 66 million years ago around the same time a huge asteroid hit the Earth which triggered a massive extinction that altered the course of life on our planet.

"We always think about the animals, the dinosaurs, because they were the biggest things to be affected, but the extinction event had a huge impact on plants too," says Herrera. "The forest reset itself, in a way that changed the composition of the plants."

Herrera and his colleagues say that the disappearance of the dinosaurs might have helped alter the forests.

"Large animals, such as dinosaurs, are known to alter their surrounding ecosystems. We think that if there were large dinosaurs roaming through the forest, they were likely knocking down trees, effectively maintaining forests more open than they are today," Mónica Carvalho, a co-author of the paper and assistant curator at the University of Michigan's Museum of Paleontology.

(With inputs from agencies)