Re: Why non-avian dinosaurs weren't able to survive

[Dann Pigdon <dannj@alphalink.com.au>]

On Tue, Nov 24th, 2015 at 3:11 PM, Ruben Safir <ruben@mrbrklyn.com> wrote:

> Well, breathing in ash, and soot through that 20 foot long neck and then
> needed to eat nearly all day to maintain your bodysize while the plant
> life was dieing all around you and not regenerating might have put the
> Sauropods to their death pretty darn quick through an easy enough to
> understand mechanism.

That's precisely what I suggested; each genus, family or superfamily likely had 
it's own fatal set of 
circumstances that were different to those of other genera, families or 
superfamilies. A large 
sauropod living close to the bolide impact site would have faced different 
stresses than a small 
theropod on the other side of the world. 

There's no single blanket hypothesis that can completely account for all 
extinctions at the end of 
the Cretaceous - probably not ever for all of the dinosauria specifically. 
Therefore the answer to 
the original question posed in this thread is; "there's no single answer". 
Non-avian dinosaurs were 
simply too diverse and widespread to have all be done in by a single defining 
event. Each species, 
genus, family, etc likely had a different tale of woe to tell.

-- 
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Dann Pigdon
Spatial Data Analyst               Australian Dinosaurs
Melbourne, Australia               http://home.alphalink.com.au/~dannj
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