Re: Speculative dino species

["David Marjanovic" <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Morgan Churchill

To: Dinosaur Mailing list

Sent: Sunday, July 29, 2001 5:26 PM

Subject: Re: Speculative dino species

  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

Does anyone have an idea what did in Lazarussuchus?

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

I would think that dinosaurs simply never get there -- into an occupied niche.

 

Any idea why monotremes died out in South America?