Re: Armadillos at the K/T! (long)

["David Marjanovic" <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Bois" <jbois@umd5.umd.edu>
Sent: Friday, October 05, 2001 7:21 PM


> Goose species have suffered near extinction when fox predators were
> allowed on nesting islands.

1. as you say, _near_ extinction
2. goose are rather defenseless
3. foxes are bigger than any Mesozoic mammal AFAIK (save perhaps
*Kollikodon*)
4. I'd like to see a fox capable of stealing an egg under the nose of a
*Saurornitholestes* or *Troodon* (and surviving that)

> To assume that what we see going on in this snapshot of
> ecological time represents evolutionary processes is futile: to demand
> that it does is worse.

Indeed. But to argue that it represents catastrophic extinction, when we
have evidence of a catastrophe at the same time, is _logical_ (parsimonious
and whatnot).