RE:sauropod feeding*

[Jeffrey Martz <martz@holly.ColoState.EDU>]

> >Coots, ducks, geese, and swans all feed from the bottoms of water bodies as
> well as on dry land.  They each have their own niche resulting from the
> length of the neck, that is, how deep they can reach.

     This sounds like suspiciously tight niche partitioning.  You mean the 
ducks dominate the the 12-24 inches from shore niche while the swans 
dominate the 24-48 inches from shore niche?  Can swans dive significantly 
deeper than ducks with thier larger size and longer necks to stake out 
thier own niche?  
     Also, with regard to the statement that climate change could not 
have been a factor in dinosaur extinction because birds survived:  Mass 
extinctions do not necessarily wipe out all memebers of a group, which 
reasons which are difficult to be certain about.  Not all dinosaurs were 
killed off at the end of the Jurassic, not all dicynodonts were killed 
off at the end of the Permian (right??), not all mammals were killed off 
in Cenozoic mass extinctions.  The dinosaurs themselves are survivors of 
the Triassic extinction that wiped out the other Archosaurs.  Also, keep 
in mind that birds adopted a radically different lifestyle that may have 
been a factor in survival (so might have metabolism, no matter what anybody 
says). 

LN Jeff
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Bunch of savages in this town."
0-