RE: K/T birds (and frogs)

["Ken Kinman" <kinman@hotmail.com>]

    The lucky frogs (even in North America) were probably either 
hibernating or estivating, and the luckiest would have been those that had 
burrowed into alkaline soil (which would help to neutralize acid rain) 
and/or in a dry region where there was little rainfall in the months 
following the impact event.  The same goes for salamanders, and some kind of 
torpor may have helped some of the mammals and reptiles (e.g., turtles, 
lizards, etc.) as well.
    Likewise the luckiest birds had buried eggs in nests in alkaline soils 
(or dry areas).  If there were hadrosaur survivors, they probably made it 
through the same way (buried eggs, as Jim Fassett has suggested).  Eggs on 
top of the ground  or in trees would have been exposed to multiple hazards 
(blast, fire, then cold, insect hordes, unbuffered acidity, etc.)---not a 
good place for eggs or their parents.
     The common theme among most tetrapod survivors was underground 
sanctuaries (preferably alkaline) for either the adults or their last batch 
of buried eggs.  In some cases, water sanctuaries may have sufficed to save 
some adults (e.g., crocs and turtles), especially if they were generalists 
feeders.
     The duck-billed platypus has a number of these things going for them 
(burrowers, egg-layers, close to water----and being way down in Australia 
sure didn't hurt either).  So it was a combination of a lot of luck and 
having the right survival strategies.  Frogs are not so delicate during 
estivation and hibernation, and so their K/T survival (even in North 
America) is not very surprising.
           ------  Ken Kinman
******************************************
> From: "Michael de Sosa"
> Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 23:30:06 -0800
>
> Hmmm. Interesting then, that every single genus of amphibian in the Lancian
> Hell Creek pulls through the extinction and goes on into the Paleocene
> Tullock, both of which are decidely in the Northern Hemisphere. Don't most
> amphibians bite the proverbial big one when you change the pH of their pond
> just a little in either direction, let alone subject them to rain with a pH
> of one or less? That is what Dr. Clemens tells us all the time, anyway.




_________________________________________________________________
Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com