Re: No Mesozoic rainforests?

[Michael Habib <mhabib5@jhmi.edu>]

Also of some interest is the fact that large amounts of modern tropical 
rainforest biomass are tied up in epiphytes.  To the best of my 
knowledge, there is no good evidence for epiphytes in the Mesozoic, but 
then again it is probably another absence of evidence issue: epiphytic 
groups have poor fossil records, and identifying a fossil form as 
having lived as an epiphyte is quite difficult, I'd imagine.

Cheers,

--Mike H.

> A kind of subtropical montane rainforest, with
> gymnosperms, treeferns and Fagales, would have been
> possible in the northern Andes for example. But such
> forest would probably be limited in distribution, both
> locally and on a global scale.
Michael Habib, M.S.
PhD. Candidate
Center for Functional Anatomy and Evolution
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
1830 E. Monument Street
Baltimore, MD 21205
(443) 280 0181
habib@jhmi.edu