Andy Farke <andyfarke@hotmail.com> wrote:
>If we are doing a speculative scenario with no KT event, we mustn't forget the Marine reptiles. maybe Mosasaurs invade freshwater enviroments, evolving into forms filling >the niches of todays crocodiles. Meanwhile, their marine relative get even more serpentine and sea serpent like. Maybe filterfeeding pliosaurs will evolve?Perhaps crocodiles and champsosaurs and other critters would have just stayed in that niche. . .
Hhhmm, if we are positing no K/T, but still the same climatic/ecological changes, than the champsosaurs wouldn't survive to modern day
But this brings me to another question. . .would animals similar to otters and beavers have evolved? My personal feeling is that they would have, once the climate started to cool down. I don't see crocodilians sticking around in the northern U.S. and Canada. Perhaps the small aquatic critters niche is one that the mammals would have successfully exploited.
I would think mammals would outcompete dinosaurs in this category, and steropodon suggests they were already invading freshwater habitats before the end of the Cretaceous