[nautil.us]

"Not all vertebrates perished in the extinction event: Some types of birds, reptiles, and small mammals did make it through, and went on to repopulate the planet. Aquatic turtles seem to have breezed through the apocalypse, for example, and a group of burrowing, rodent-like mammals called multituberculates weren’t particularly phased. But how did they make it though? Paleontologists have documented not just the die-off of green plants, but also of insects that fed on those plants. “Those animals that ate insects would have needed some other source of protein,” Chin says, “and worms may have been key.”

It’s an elegant theory: In the wastage of the world, one creature found sustenance, and provided nourishment in turn to the animals that were starting a new legacy of life. And it was the earthworm’s own refuse that told the story to the inquisitive Chin. The book of life is written in scat."