Re: Extinction due to "blue balls"

[Waylon Rowley <cryptovolans@yahoo.com>]

John Bois wrote:

> While I agree with everything else in this post, the
> above statement is
> too simplistic.  Were large hadrosaurs camped out
> nesting on today's
> Serengeti, mammals, birds, and varanids(?) would
> undoubtedly destroy
> either their hatchlings or their eggs.  So, the idea
> itself is not a
> stretch.

    I agree. There would be many animals taking
advantage of an unwary mother, or a misplaced egg.
We're not talking about the extinction of hadrosaurs
exclusively. The idea that mammals ate enough eggs to
cause the death of all species of non-avians, is the
claim being made. Maybe there was an ecological domino
effect that could kill off some of them, but a group
of animals as diverse as dinosaurs should be a little
more resilient than that. 
    If Microraptor-like theropods and other
undiscovered arboreal species made nests in the trees,
it's odd that they would go extinct, when birds were
just as vulnerable to nest raids. 
    If mesozoic alligators or other crocodilians
covered their nests like their modern relatives and
hadrosaurs did, they should have gone extinct as well.
    If it were true, there would be a population
explosion of small mammals. This in turn, would create
a similar explosion of small dinosaurs, like Troodon,
and other predators that would feed on them, before
their numbers got too out-of-hand. Nature abhors a
vacuum, you know. 
     Lastly, why did it all culminate at the KT
boundary? Egg eaters were present throughout the
mesozoic.

-Waylon R.

  


        
                
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