Re: [Re: polar sauropods]

["M.Alan Kazlev" <akazlev@kheper.auz.com>]

Julia Alldredge wrote:

> All this polar Dino talk makes me wonder mostly about what plants
> would
> suvive 6 mo. of total or almost total darkness.
>
> Thanks,
> Dan

  Mid Cretaceous polar dinos from Dinosaur cove & thereabouts (SE
Australia) did quite well in 6 months darkness.  Various plants,
freshwater fish, & insects have been recovered from the Koonowarra site
of roughly the same age (maybe a little earlier).  There's a monograph
on the Koonawarra insects but i don't have it on me.  In any case
full-sized trees (conifers I suppose) were able to survive in these
conditions.  Curiously though no sauropods have been found from Dinosaur
Cove, although a number of smaller dinosaurs (hypsilophodonts are
common) have been foun, and sauropods are known from further north
(Queensland).  The conditions in any case were not as cold as todays
polar climate, perhaps comparable to Boreal instead.  The absense of
sauropods may have been due to preservation factors or (this is my own
opinion) it may have been that the young, being uninsulated, were unable
to cope with the cold.  This indictaes that the chicken sized
hypsilophodontids must logically have had insulation even in adulthood.

----------
Kewl!   :-)

M.Alan

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