Endotherms and island life (was: follow-up on sauropods) -Reply

[JAMES SUTTON <SUTTON.JAMES@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV>]

Wiwaxia would also like to know more about the mammoth discovery.
How old are they? Were they juvies or adult? What was the geography
of their habitat when they were alive? Was it island? Mainland connected
by a land-bridge?  

Wiwaxia

>>> Larry Dunn <majestic_cheese@yahoo.com> 06/05/98 08:50am >>>
---Richard W Travsky <rtravsky@uwyo.edu> wrote:

> A good and pertinent example of this would be the recently discovered
> extinct population of dwarf mammoths frmo that island off the ALaskan
> area.

Isn't this generally true of normally-large terrestrial endotherms
suddenly finding their populations located on islands?  I believe that
Cretaceous dinosaurs living on the islands in central Europe were
dwarfs (or dwarves if you prefer) as well.

Incidentally, has this ever been proposed as an indication of dinosaur
endothermy?  After all, biggish ectotherms finding themselves island
dwellers (see Oras, Tortoises) seem to show the opposite tendency.

Sipping a pina with the mammoths,

==
Larry
http://members.tripod.com/~megalania/index.html

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