Re: New Cretaceous bird and other papers

[NJPharris@aol.com]

In a message dated Mon, 18 Feb 2002  7:33:27 AM Eastern Standard Time, John 
Bois <jbois@umd5.umd.edu> writes:

> 
> 
> On Sun, 17 Feb 2002, David Marjanovic wrote:
> 
> > All known birds from the Maastrichtian site on
> > Seymour Island (next to the Antarctic Peninsula) are Neornithes.
> 
> You are saying (I think) that neornithines
> outcompeted enantiornithines in the Antarctic and (presumably) other parts
> of Gondwana.  The "event", then, just greased the wheels for neos,
> facilitating their inevitable global domination a little earlier.=20

That's a fairly egregious _non sequitur_.  In the absence of a K-T event, it 
might well have been that "enantiornithines" (whatever those end up being)  
would have dominated the north and neornithines the south, right up to the 
present day--much like marsupials and placentals.  We'll never know.

--Nick P.