RE: Limbs and niche partitioning

["Tracy Ford" <tlford@ix.netcom.com>]

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu [mailto:owner-dinosaur@usc.edu]On Behalf Of
Richard W Travsky
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 1999 12:13 PM
To: dinosaur@usc.edu
Subject: Re: Limbs and niche partitioning

On Thu, 30 Sep 1999 NJPharris@aol.com wrote:
> [...]
> I've wondered this myself in the past (and there are probably some old
posts
> of mine on the subject floating around the archives).  This may also be
why
> dinosaurs were not particularly effective at producing small-mammal-sized
> forms (at least not until the advent of advanced flight and hopping

We can't know that there weren't a lot of small-mammal-sized forms
because of preservation bias on larger forms in the fossil record.

Not really. I don't think it's a preservation bias, only a collecting bias.
The small-mammal-sized forms my only be preserved via the teeth and screen
washing is one way to find the small teeth. Scouring the litature I've found
several articles about the discovery of small teeth from several different
kinds of animals that seem to be either forgotten, not known about or
ignored by the larger skeletal elements that are used in cladagrams. Now I
know I'll hear that the teeth are not important in clades (by some) because
they can't be scored. SO WHAT!!! The we have evidence for the animals.
Tracy