Re: "Dinosaurs Died Within Hours After Asteroid Hit Earth..."

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

> There was quite a diversity of
> neornithines that survived (galliformes, anseriformes, charadriiformes,
> cormorants, albatrosses, loons),

Though... the Cretaceous record of albatrosses is limited to a _furcular
fragment_, so I simply don't believe it; the cormorant remains are more
convincing, but consist only of tarsometatarsi, and we don't know what a
tarsometatarsus of a basal flying hesperornithiform -- like what
*Potamornis* could well have been -- looked like.

> and enantiornithines were very diverse at
> the Maastrichtian too (Avisaurus, Enantiornis, Lectavis, Yungavolucris).

*Avisaurus* and *Enantiornis* could have been birds of prey. *Lectavis* has
very long, thin legs, so ought to have been some sort of wader, while
*Yungavolucris*, known from a short, very broad tarsometatarsus, seems to
have been a foot-propelled diver -- Neornithes in those niches survived.

> How well sampled are Danian localities for birds?

Worse than Eocene localities excluding Messel, the London Clay and the Green
River Fm.