RE: Speculative dino species

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@geol.umd.edu>]

> From: Srnka, Christopher P. [mailto:Srnka.Christopher@mayo.edu]
> Sent: Friday, July 27, 2001 4:37 PM
> To: Srnka, Christopher P.; 'Daniel Bensen'; 'Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.'
> Cc: dinosaur@usc.edu
> Subject: RE: Speculative dino species
>
>
> Excellent points to keep in mind. But regarding the amount of
> change over 65
> million years, in particular after the K/T event (which in the speculative
> scenario did not result in dinosaur extinction but still was a major event
> regardless)

Ah.  I thought the scenario was "there was no K/T boundary event".  And, as
such, anything still doing well at the end of the Maastrichtian would be
fare game for the Cenozoic.

> and through the ice age; wouldn't we expect evolution to have
> punctuated the equilibrium, not to be too punny...?
>
Obviously there would have been some evolutionary change.  In particular,
the onset of the grasslands would have brought with it potential of massive
changes in the anatomy of the new "prarie dinosaurs" (as it did with large
mammals in our history).  Additionally the same event seems to be correlated
with the radiations of muroid (mice & rats) rodents, elapid snakes,
songbirds, and compositacean plants, so you might expect the dinosaurs to
follow suit.

For people with a LOT of free time, recall that the late Eocene extinctions
were pretty severe for terrestrial vertebrates: among other losers in the
real history were champsosaurs and multituberculate and lots of big
dumpy-looking mammals.  So if there some groups you wanted to take out in
the interim between the K/T (or lack thereof) and now, that would be the
prime time to wipe them out.

                Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                Vertebrate Paleontologist
Department of Geology           Director, Earth, Life & Time Program
University of Maryland          College Park Scholars
                College Park, MD  20742
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/tholtz.htm
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/eltsite
Phone:  301-405-4084    Email:  tholtz@geol.umd.edu
Fax (Geol):  301-314-9661       Fax (CPS-ELT): 301-405-0796