Re: query about K-T extinction

[sean.kerns@sdrc.com (Snake)]

> 
> 
> On Wed, 31 May 1995 16:15:45 -0400 
> Vicki Rosenzweig said:
> > I was wondering what the largest land animal known to
> > have survived the K-T extinction was. (I have a hunch,
> > which I haven't checked, that the largest animal to
> > survive the extinction was probably marine; does anyone
> > know if I'm right about this.)
> 
> I'm not sure whether anything larger made it, but there were some
> good sized crocodilians that made it.
> 
> John.

Okay, okay,
This brings this back up again. Weren't there dinosaurs which were
smaller than these crocodiles alive at the K/T, and if so, why would the
crocs have survived, but not the dinos?
This, of course, is based on the supposition that the dinos died out
because they were the biggest animals on land. 

Or are crocs a special case?

I guess what I'm getting at is this:
The argument I seem to always see is that the dinos dies out because
they were the biggest animals, and I can accept that in the case of
large sauropods and large meat-eaters like T-Rex. But weren't there
little (like dog-sized) dinos around at the time? And if so, how can
you explain how they didn't survive if bigger non-dino land species
did, based on the theory above?

Sorry to ramble. I just keep having this problem with _all_ dinos dying
out because of this when other families limped at least partially through.
Were there any non-dino animals where _no_ species lived trough the K/T?
I'm thinking land animals, as I'm sure there are some of these in the ocean.

Just wondering out loud again...
Sean
> 

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*  Snake---------                                          *
*  sean.kerns@sdrc.com                                     *
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