Re: extinction

["James R. Cunningham" <jrccea@bellsouth.net>]

David, in your recent posts, you've been saying a lot of things well. 
Hang in there.

That said, I can think of one thing that would kill off all pterosaurs
virtually simultaneously, and it is the one thing that is most likely to
have occurred at the K-T boundary.  Pterosaurs aren't capable of
continuous flapping flight -- they're motor-gliders.  And they don't
have much in the way of fat reserves to serve as fuel tanks.  If you
make weather conditions unsuitable for soaring flight for about 3 weeks,
you'll do away with all pterosaurs forever. In my mind, that's not
negative evidence. Personally, I suspect the Chixulub impactor affected
the atmosphere long enough to do exactly that.  More below.
Jim

David Marjanovic wrote:
> 
> Well said.
> Nevertheless, there is only negative evidence that suggests that the
> pterosaurs did die out catastrophically at the K-T boundary:
> http://www.cmnh.org/dinoarch/2003Jul/msg00405.html. So we better use taxa
> with a better fossil record to decide this long-decided issue.

How do we use taxa with a better fossil record to decide when pterosaurs
died? :-)

On the other hand, if we know when the weather screwed up, we know
exactly when they died.