Re: How Sauropods Got So Big

[don ohmes <d_ohmes@yahoo.com>]

--- On Sat, 3/28/09, David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at> wrote:

> > *Definition -- to raise enough silt off of the bottom
> to clog the local water column, at which point gilled
> creatures that can't escape to clear water pass out
> (hypoxia), often floating belly-up.
> 
> Does that work with (even Australian) lungfish?

Don't know. Heh. And I think I could get in a lot of trouble trying to find out.

_Amia calva_ are ancient also, and it does work on them, although not as nearly 
well as on perciformes. Also bullheads can be taken this way...

One point is that this can naturally occur anytime a large animal enters 
stagnant, shallow water. I have seen small fish (bluegill and stumpknockers) 
temporarily stunned by livestock watering in a pond.  Obviously, the cows were 
not interested in fish, but the point is that they could have easily captured 
them.

I suppose one could speculate that such events might have shaped the morphology 
of the older freshwater fishes, or even that the freshwater perches benefited 
greatly from the post-K/Pg absence of 'dino-turbation'...