dinosaur extinction

[jstam@iag.TNO.NL (Jean-Marie Stam)]

Hello all,

I am trying to develope some ideas on the extinction of the large dynosaurs.
As I am new to this list I do not know if these questions are simple 
or they have already been discussed> In that case I apologize in advance.
However the idea has partly to do with my thesis so I would appreciate any
discussion.


The basic idea is that a catastrofic event (like a meterite impact) 
could have caused global changes in temperature of the earth affecting
the vegetation. Assumimg the large dinosaurs to be cold blooded and
grass-eaters, such a change in vegetation coiuld have ended with the
large dinosaurs, because they would not have had enough food to maintain 
themselves. 

My concrete questions are:

1) are there still any cold-blooded grasseating reptiles?

2) how much food, in relation to its size, would a cold-cblooded 
reptile need to maintain itself (e.g. a dinosaur of 2000 kg)?

Thanks for any help

Jean-Marie 
~~~~~~~~~ J.M.T. Stam; jstam@iag.tno.nl; Delft; The Netherlands ~~~~~~~~
 . o        c ,    "Si je te tenais, romain, je te ferais frire
 `'#v--  --v#`'              dans de l'huile d'olive!"
  /'>      <`\                (Asterix en  Hispanie)                       
                 
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