Re: Post K-T non-avian dinosaurs (was K-T selection event)

[Pieter.Depuydt@rug.ac.be]

> I've often wondered if there was any chance that dinosaurs (other 
> than birds) did in fact hang on in certain locations post K-T, in 
> terrain totally unsuitable for fossilization?   I'm not talking 
> Nessie here, folks.  Has this been discussed at all?

I think this is really plausible, but we really don't know anything 
about it, so what to discuss about?
However, in paleontology there is the phenomenon of a 
"Lazarus-taxon", i.e. the find of remains of a representative of a certain 
taxon in 
strata (sometimes much) younger than those of the until then last known member 
of that taxon, thus extending the record of it "forward" in time.
A nice example of it is the find of a Miocene (or was it Pliocene?) 
choristodere, which were until then thought to be extinct by the end 
of the Eocene (read this somewhere in Evolutionary Biology I think), 
and of course the discovery of the extant Latimeria (which is now 
prone to extinction just to mention...). So perhaps one day we will 
hear of the find of a non-avian dinosaur in Paleocene or Eocene 
strata (it seems unplausible they made it into the late Paleogene 
(with G), which was already a very different world as the Mesozoic).

Pieter Depuydt