Re: Fwd: Re: Fwd: Gingko berries as evidence of dino sense of smell?

["Larry Febo" <larryf@capital.net>]

-----Original Message-----
From: dbensen <dbensen@gotnet.net>
To: conradjack@hotmail.com <conradjack@hotmail.com>
Cc: dinosaur@usc.edu <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Date: Saturday, February 05, 2000 12:08 AM
Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: Fwd: Gingko berries as evidence of dino sense of
smell?

>If the fruit could only be spread by scavengers, then I doubt it was a
>vertebrate.  I've heard of flies being attracted to and pollinating flowers
that
>smell like carrion, but I've _never_ heard of scavengers being attracted to
>nasty-smelling fruit.  Think of a vulture trying to eat ginkgo seeds.  I
think
>that there was (perhaps still is, in China, somewhere) some symbiotic
organism
>that we don't know about that does the fruit dispersing.  Maybe it was the
>extinction of this symbiotic organism a few thousand years ago that caused
the
>ginkgo to go extinct in the wild.
> I like the soil microbe idea much better than scavengers as fruit-eaters.
>
>Dan
>


For what it`s worth,...I recently saw (on HGTV...the Gardeners channel) a
discussion of insectivorous plants that attract their prey with the odor of
rotting flesh, and was surprised at the mention that "small mammals" were
included in the prey! (Which small mammals were not specified).