Fwd: Re: Non-dinosaurian surprise

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

I'm sure this was supposed to go to the list. Because I have nothing to add, I 
forward it uncommented.

Quick reminder: I'm not sure if that's a good idea, but if you just click 
"reply", the reply will go to the sender of the original, not to the list. To 
reply to the list, you have to change the To: line by hand.

-------- Original-Nachricht --------
Datum: Wed, 13 Dec 2006 22:26:31 +0100 (CET)
Von: evelyn sobielski <koreke77@yahoo.de>
An: david.marjanovic@gmx.at
Betreff: Re: Non-dinosaurian surprise

--- David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>
schrieb:

> > Oh man, this will put so much water on the mills
> > of the "waitoreke" entusiasts...
>
> Not to mention the kaureke! :o)

I wonder what they're gonna make of that.

> > The interesting thing is, still, that the lineage
> > was competed out of existence
>
> What makes you think so? Shouldn't that be among the
> last possibilities to consider here?

Well, at least with advent of H. sapiens it was wiped
out as well as one could tell. At any rate, the
possibility of volcanoes etc major destruction of
habitat is also a factor to consider
-> local mini-ice age on S Island from massive amounts
of ejecta floating around on the edge of the S Polar
front? Meteorologically possible; would make no major
impact on global climate records, esp near-nil on N
Hemisphere.

And so on. NZ had no placental mammals to speak of
until fairly recently, but a safe cozy place to evolve
around it was never.

> Why can't it be the other way around -- that in NZ
> the niche for insectivorous mammals was rather
> empty, so the bats, which had no competition, filled
> it?

Oh, they did of course. But all the time with fairly
low diversity as fas as known. So the niche had "space
for a few more", but altogether was full of "reptiles"
and some amphibs. The niche itself - I would tend to
call it leaf litter/partially airborne
micro-meso*insectivore.

The kokako does much the same, with a slight shift in
prey size spectrum eg., as did the piopio etc
(passerine species-poor lineages apparently btw, the
former one's basal). The NZ bats' role in the
ecosystem was little more than just another kind of
odd forest bird that ate insects, worms and like-sized
prey. Eg no bat specializations on fruit, nectar,
moths, small vertebrates etc known from NZ, while
theoretically, N Island should always have been
colonizable for fruitbats as long as there have been
fruitbats in the area.

* as per vertebrate standards

Regards,

Eike
-- 
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