Re: Speculative dino species

["aspidel" <aspidel@infonie.be>]

Michael Bruce Habib <mbh3q@cms.mail.virginia.edu> wrote:

> If the K/T event is eliminated, and dinosaur lineages
> continue, one might also expect some interesting parasites
> to develop.  I'm not speaking so much for pathogens and
> smaller parasites (a topic that would be far to difficult to
> evaluate at all scientifically without dinosaur physiology),
> but species of specialized nest replacement parasites
> similar to modern cuckoos. Say, for example, a dromeo
> species that lays its eggs in other theropod nests, and has
> young with a faster growth rate than average, so they take
> over the nest (essentially the cuckoo model).

Agree, this could be.

> I see this as an adaptive response to shrinking
> viable nesting zones that might occur with climatic cooling.
>
> Another viable idea would be sanguivores (represented today
> by the vampire bats in the genera Desmodus, Diphylla, and
> Diaemus) specialized to feed on dinosaur taxa. This may
> seem to be going way out on a limb, but...

Don't forget animals which eat skin parasites; this can be the role of some
birds (some surviving birds with teeth?)

> 1. Small mammals could still proliferate, as well as small
> dinosaurs (actually, bats themselves may have Cretaceous
> ancestry, given their known fossil history)

Food for troodontids!

> 2. Sanguivores were widespread, and included more species
> (some of relatively large size) when the mammalian
> megafauna were prevalent.  That is, they require large
> vertebrates as prey species, and radiate during periods
> when large vertebrates are widespread.
>
> I would imagine that such a niche would still be held by
> mammals (if it still developed), but I couldn't help toying
> with the idea of sanguivorous species of very small
> theropods, or more likely, toothed birds (assuming they
> make it through K/T as well in our little model).

Let's do it by theropod-specialized insects and ticks.

................................. (reflexion time)

Well... Now I try to reply some of HP dino-listers...

--- In the sea: I see domining mosasaurs and plesiosaurs.
Why not a huge mosasaur eating krill, with an adaptated big mouth?
Do we keep ophtalmosaurs?

--- Hypsilodontids:(to HP Dan) I meant some species adaptated to cold winter
like _Laellynasaura_, OTHER hypsilodontids in the Far Norht as in the Far
South, becoming more abundant during the Ice Age.

--- (to HP Andy) All right for sauropods eating grasses; then we get grasses
with solid roots!
But I'd like not to put grasses in ALL ecosystems: let's try to keep a good
place for big ferns - still domining in marshes; some
hypsilophodonts get specialized on feeding on ferns, and why not, blue
berries!!

--- I'm trying to put fungi in it!

--- Hadrosaurs: specialized to feed on brushes, like in South Europe; other
species are living along the rivers, feeding on Carex, Alnus, Salix,... or
other plants, depending on climatic conditions.

--- About the Ice Age: sauropods regress in cold lands and are replaced by
"wooly" segnosaurs; big theropods species are either fluffy, or fatter
during the winter; or -why not?- the're replaced by giant feathered
dromaeosaurs or coelurosaurs.

--- Do we keep fishing spinosaurs?

--- About intelligent dromaeosaurs: I agree with HP Dan but, since I'm also
a strip artist, I found very funny to try to draw it, and to try to imagine
a possible evolution of the maniraptoran hand.
.
.
.
.............................................................(place for
others HP to go on)
I keep all the posts about it; I'll try to make some drawings, but I also
gotta go on with my Zuni coelurosaur reconstruction and my Paralititan
reconstruction in landscape.

I agree with everybody to this point: let's try to make something quite
accurate, and with possible evolution, and with ecology (food chains,
niches, clmats...). IMHO, it's far from easy, but I think everybody has
something to learn by doing it.

I sure forgot many things!!!

(Brainstorming now!!)

Friendly - Luc J. "Aspidel" BAILLY.