Re: K/T revisited, was: Re: DINOSAUR digest 3382

[David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

> Everything which eats dead plants
> (detritus) survived.

Well... a little bit of those survived.

> Everything else died out.

Yes.

> Survived freshwater fish,
> turtles and crocs which eat freshwater invertebrates.

*Brachychampsa*, an alligator...oid apparently specialized for cracking 
turtles, did die out. Looks like not enough turtles survived to support a 
layer of carnivores above them.

> One thing which strikes me is how many different
> amphibians, small mammals and birds survived.
> According to genetic analysis, at least 20 clades of
> birds and many mammals, including two already separate
> Solenodons from Cuba and Haiti, which were already
> separate in Mesosoic and never moved away from their
> islands since!

Most, or all, of those analyses are miscalibrated.

And so far none takes the effects of metabolism and body size on the rate of 
molecular evolution into account (published in January 2005).

> Scenarios like wildfires, acid rain or global change
> of climate are against the facts - big animals are
> more resistant to that than frogs or small birds.

Do you think so? Small birds can for example just fly away whatever happens, 
frogs can survive wildfires very easily when they are in the water, and so 
on...