RE: Why non-avian dinosaurs weren't able to survive

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@umd.edu>]

> From: Ronald Orenstein [mailto:ron.orenstein@rogers.com]
> Sent: Monday, November 23, 2015 11:49 AM
> To: tholtz@umd.edu
> Cc: dinosaurtom2015@seznam.cz; dinosaur@usc.edu; bcreisler@gmail.com
> Subject: Re: Why non-avian dinosaurs weren't able to survive
> 
> What about reproductive rate?  Large animals with low birth rates and long 
> generation times may have had more survival
difficulties
> than smaller animals with lager broods, adapted to conditions under which 
> infant mortality was high.

That is true, and important for the Quaternary megafaunal extinctions.

But so far as we have reconstructed, dinosaurs had high birth rates and short 
generation times: life fast, die young, and make lots
of babies (who mostly die).

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Email: tholtz@umd.edu         Phone: 301-405-4084
Senior Lecturer, Vertebrate Paleontology
Office: Geology 4106, 8000 Regents Dr., College Park MD 20742
Dept. of Geology, University of Maryland
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/
Phone: 301-405-6965
Fax: 301-314-9661              

Faculty Director, Science & Global Change Program, College Park Scholars
Office: Centreville 1216, 4243 Valley Dr., College Park MD 20742
http://www.geol.umd.edu/sgc
Fax: 301-314-9843

Mailing Address:        Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                        Department of Geology
                        Building 237, Room 1117
                        8000 Regents Drive
                        University of Maryland
                        College Park, MD 20742-4211 USA