Re: Speculative dino species

["aspidel" <aspidel@infonie.be>]

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. <tholtz@geol.umd.edu> wrote:

> Ah.  I thought the scenario was "there was no K/T boundary event".

That's what I understood too.

> Obviously there would have been some evolutionary change.  In particular,
> the onset of the grasslands would have brought with it potential of
massive
> changes in the anatomy of the new "prarie dinosaurs" (as it did with large
> mammals in our history).  Additionally the same event seems to be
correlated
> with the radiations of muroid (mice & rats) rodents, elapid snakes,
> songbirds, and compositacean plants, so you might expect the dinosaurs to
> follow suit.

As I just wrote, without K/T extinction, it's not certain!

> For people with a LOT of free time, recall that the late Eocene
extinctions
> were pretty severe for terrestrial vertebrates: among other losers in the
> real history were champsosaurs and multituberculate and lots of big
> dumpy-looking mammals.  So if there some groups you wanted to take out in
> the interim between the K/T (or lack thereof) and now, that would be the
> prime time to wipe them out.

... and NOW let's imagine which dinosaurs did survive after this event...
Well, well, well................................

Friendly - LJB.