Re: Speculative dino species

[Daniel Bensen <dbensen@gotnet.net>]

>>Yeah, COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!!!!!!<<
:)

>>Remember WWD's antarctic scene featuring _Laellynasaura_!<<
But laellynasaurs are Australian, so wouldn't have a chance to come into
contact with the rest of the world.

>>This could only happen if the "transitional shorebirds" that there were
before the K-T as well as, say, oviraptoro- and ornithomimosaurs died out,
IMHO.<<
Yeah, the simplest counterpart for an ibis-like dinosaur is an ibis, itself.
However, I can easily imagine a sort of shorebird dinosaur that _eats_ ibises.

>>If we assume the explosive
radiation of placentals didn't take place we have to find a compelling
reason for killing of the multis...<<
My vote is that the multis stay.  As far as I know, there's no reason for
killing them off.

>>So vote for the scenario:
1- no K/T extinction, no comet on the Earth.
2- some dinosaurs surviving the extiction.<<
I vote for no K/T extinction, but assume that all of the climatic changes the
Earth went through during the Cenozoic still happened, and several dinosaur
groups went extinct in the interim.

>> What changes would have been initiated by new vegetation? <<
There was an essay on just that subject in the Dinosaur Heresies, by Bob
Bakker.  In that chapter, the author discussed the two main grass-eating groups
of the Cenozoic, the horses and the gazelles.  The gazells, being ruminants,
chew their grass over and over as cud, and thus are far more efficiant grazers
than horses, which can only chew once.  Bakker points out the reacent rise in
artiodactyl (sp) diversity at the expence of the perrisodactyls and then goes
on to discuss the gastric systems of herbivorous dinosaurs, which are better
than either mammalian system, because dinosaurs had crops.  A sauropod,
therefor, would not need a horse-like battery of teeth to graze.  Simply eat as
much grass as possible, and swallow stones to grind it up.

>>I like HP Benson's idea of therizinosaurs inheriting the earth. . .that's
one group of dinosaurs I really would have liked to survive the extinction.
;-)<<
Thanks. :)

As to dinosaur intelligence, my vote is no way!
I'd much rather we stick to animals, since we see how much damage an
intelligent life form does to the surrounding ecosystems.  Just think about
what would have happened to North American megafauna if humans had screwed
things up.

>> I'd expect to see strong evolutionary pressure on grasses to
get tougher, taller, and faster growing.<<
Prairies covered with high-silica bamboo?

>>Whatever they were eating, having a better grade of foodstuff become
available might well have lead to a strong sauropod resurgence<<
I agree here.  Titanosaurs perhaps migrating up from the Panama canal?

Dan