Re: Dinosaurs survived in Antarctica? (Was: Re: "Dinosaurs Died W ithin Hours After Asteroid Hit Earth...")

[Brian Choo <bchoo@bigpond.net.au>]

On 20/06/2004, at 8:53 PM, David Marjanovic wrote:

> > And in the Late Paleocene Tingamarra fauna from Queensland we get a
> > whole host of of stuff that is more characteristic of a South American
> > (or rather a pre-breakup gondwanan) fauna but subsequently went 
> > extinct
> > in Oz - notably salamanders,
>
> Wow!!! Today salamanders don't occur south of the Amazon and the 
> Sahara or
> so!

Well - Patagonia isn't the nicest place for salamanders today - 
especially since the S.American salamanders were stupid enough to lose 
their lungs...

> > microbiotheriid marsupials,
>
> Really?

Yup though I don't think its been named as of yet.
> > the very scant Late Paleocene (where
> > we do have terrestrial eutherians plus bats)
>
> Er... wait. Paleocene bats? Those are the oldest known ones at all! :-o
> (Except for some poorly identifiable fragments from Wyoming, IIRC.)

*Australonycteris clarkae* Hand, Novacek, Godthelp & Archer 1994.

Genuine diagnostic Paleocene ozzie microchiropteran bones...in JVP no 
less! (vol 14:375-381) Note that back then the Tingamarra site was 
thought to be Eocene. Looks like oz had bats & passerines before they 
became fashionable elsewhere.

Cheerio
Brian