RE: Subterranean strategies

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

Scott,
    I think the important thing to remember is that there was probably no
single successful "strategy" (actually there must a better term which sounds
less like a planned human "strategy")---- how about:  there was "no single
successful K-T coping mechanism".
     Being a small oviraptor or enantiornithine bird wouldn't have helped
if that smallness wasn't combined with other factors like the habit of
burying eggs in a suitable environment or living in a burrow.  And being a
small egg-burying bird wouldn't have helped if it was unlucky enough to be
living anywhere near the impact area.
     A single species of tinamou-like bird may have survived in burrows,
and then given rise to all the living paleognath birds (ostriches, modern
tinamous, etc.).  A single megapode-like species may have survived because
of buried eggs, and given rise to all the living galliform birds (and
perhaps all anseriforms as well if the galliform-anseriform clade is real).
And there may have been only a few other bird species surviving to give rise
to the other living bird clades.  Anyway, the fact that tinamous and
megapodes live in the southern hemisphere is probably no coincidence.
Geographic location was clearly another big factor, and other variables as
well, so there are no single, simple answers.
             ------Cheers,   Ken
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