Re: Trans-Arctic Terns (Was: non-avian dino extinct)

["Michael" <tons@ccs.netside.com>]

> To:            tons@ccs.netside.com
> Date:          Sun, 15 Jun 1997 19:04:41 -0500
> Subject:       Re: Trans-Arctic Terns (Was: non-avian dino extinct)
> From:          zenlizard@juno.com (Sam j hogan)

> On Fri, 21 Mar 1997 14:46:21 -0500 Michael Teuton writes:
> >>... the migration patterns of Trans-arctic Terns.
> >Is their migration based on angle of light or magnetic based?
> OK, it took me a while to track this one down, but I finally did it. 
> (BTW, are you still on the mailing list?  I thought I remember a message
> a while back saying that you need more time than the list allowed you to
> deal with).
> Anyway, I digress.  I was at a camping event over the weekend where I ran
> into an ornithologist friend of mine and talked to him about.  I turns
> out that no one is completely sure what their migration patterns are
> based on-not enough information has been collected.  However, they are
> relatively rrecently evolved birds  (within the last 45 million years or
> so, I  *THINK*  I remember him saying).  So, the continental drift theory
>  goes out the window.
> -zenlizard
> 
> I wonder what it's like to be Mr. Metaphor
> 
The reason I was interested in this was that some birds survived the 
K-T extinction and apparently most were shore birds and some were 
terns.  Or I am wrong about that?  I thought that knowing that their 
migration was magnetic based would allow them to survive a long 
"nuclear winter" better than angle of light.  It's unlikely that 
everything on the planet that went extinct did so on the day of the 
impact even if the impact is the culminating event.  Post-impact 
sequelae had to have affected some species differently.  Thanks for 
getting back to me.  I had forgotten I even asked the question.

Michael