RE: mosasaur babies/no marine dinos

["Ken Kinman" <kinman@hotmail.com>]

     It seems to me that dinosaurs simply never had the chance to evolve 
into that niche because of competitive exclusion from other marine reptiles 
that got there first.   This probably kept mammals from radiating into 
marine niches as well (until the K-T extinction opened them up).
     In others words, maybe it was more a matter of bad timing, rather than 
something intrinsically preventing dinosaurs from evolving viviparous 
survival mechanisms for permanent life in the open ocean (which has not been 
a common occurence among amniotes, and therefore obviously not an easy thing 
to do even without the pressures of competitive exclusion).
    Birds and turtles may have been too specialized to evolve marine 
vivipary, but some early dinosaurs may have had the potential to develop it 
if only other marine reptiles hadn't beat them to it.
           ----- Ken
****************************************
> John Bois wrote:
> I'm proposing that no dinosaur could compete in the whale/mosasaur habitat, 
> i.e., be big and a completely an open sea-faring creature--independent of 
> land.<<



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