Re: Subterranean strategies

["Scott P. Smith" <scott@scott-smith.com>]

Well, for a egg laying species to reproduce, it's eggs must be viable.  If
conditions that prevented eggs from developing  lasted for 150 years after
the K/T all egg laying species with reproductive spans less that 150 years
would go extinct.

I still cling to the hope that one day someone will come up with a simple
theory that explains why ALL dinosaur species became extinct while many
animals that are (superficially) similar survived.  There must be some
behavioral or generic explanation.  Another idea I have considered is that
dinosaurs were susceptible to some pathogen which thrived in the K/T
environment.  (I saw a show on PBS that suggested a volcanic eruption about
450AD caused the plague in Europe.) I don't think it was accidental that NO
non-avian dinosaurs survived.

Scott
Software developer, self-proclaimed philosopher


----- Original Message -----
From: "Adam Britton" <abritton@wmi.com.au>
To: <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2001 10:28 PM
Subject: Re: Subterranean strategies

> I can't believe that eggs, that incubate in fairly specific conditions for
> say 90 days (fairly typical modern example) would be able to survive the
> catastrophic conditions that are being implied, when long-lived reptiles
> that can go for months without food, could not.
>
> Adam
>
>