Re: more dinosaur extinction stuff

[Stan Friesen <swf@ElSegundoCA.NCR.COM>]

 > 
 > It is true that mammals, lizards, turtles, alligators, crocodiles, birds,
 > etc. did survive...but all those groups took quite a pounding also..

I never said otherwise.  I was just commenting on the distribution
of relative impact.

Specialists are more prone to extinction during mass extinction
than opportunists.

[Besides, by the end of the Cretaceous, mammals were diverse
enough to have rather alot of specialists as well as generalists,
so, naturally, they would have been impacted pretty heavily].

 > 
 > (Birds are specialized/highly evolved dinosaurs....so not all of them 
 > died!!!)
 > 
Highly derived - but ecologically speaking, many avian lineages
are generalists (crows, pigeons, gulls, and so on, are all very
opportunistic feeders, and at least the pigeons are a very old
lineage).

swf@elsegundoca.ncr.com         sarima@netcom.com

The peace of God be with you.