Re: Dinosaur Toe Found on S. Pacific Island

[Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>]

bucketfoot-al@justice.com wrote:

> Actually, Tim, I was referring to Faro(e?) Island from
> the "King Kong vs. Godzilla" classic ('100-ton Simian
> with no neck' - get it? ;>)

Oh THAT Faro Island.  I getcha.  ;-)  From the 1962 film (never saw it).

Not to be confused with that other Faro Island - a nude beach in southern 
Portugal.  Though I suppose Kong (and Godzilla) would be at home there too.  
They've got nothing to hide.

> Its fun to speculate about New Zealand being the last refuge of non-Avian 
> dinosaurs, but as you know, their adaptability under normal circumstances 
> being what it was, had they survived past the end of the CretaceousDown 
> Under...well, they'd still be there in all likelihood...

Well, at least until the Polynesians came along.

As somebody else mentioned, NZ was particularly hard hit by the Chicxulub 
impact (Vajda, Raine, Hollis [2001], Science 294: 1700-1702), so it's likely 
that even here non-avian dinosaurs went extinct at the end of the 
Cretaceous.  Perhaps all the mammals too.

> more intriguing was the discovery some years ago, in a remote New Zealand 
> valley, of a small
> grove of a species of primitive dinosaur-era pines (related to Araucaria, I 
> believe - male and female
> trees like the Araucaria have)

Do you mean the Wollemi pine, _Wollemia nobilis_, from southeastern 
Australia?

Cheers

Tim