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Naively I would assume that if we really had experienced two years of darkness, avian species would not be here now.
by QAPereo 9y ago
Naively I would assume that if we really had experienced two years of darkness, avian species would not be here now.
- ljf 9y agoWould be interested to hear your thoughts that led you that way (not saying wrong or right, just interested)
- cwbrandsma 9y agoFeathers act as insulation, they are warm blooded, and opportunistic eater. My chickens are hardy to -20 degrees outside. So long as they were farther south I could imagine them surviving. Even if they were north, as long as they could eat meat, the coming cold temperatures could keep food (other dead animal) around for quite a while. Even then, I could image ancestors of vultures doing quite well for a good long while. Anyway, also a naive set of guesses on my part.
- blacksmith_tb 9y agoI do have to wonder how plants could have rebounded from two years without being able to photosynthesize - you'd think lots of species wouldn't have viable seeds kicking around at that point. Which would make for some massive changes to the fossil record for plants. To say nothing of the animals that depend on them...
- retSava 9y ago66 mn years is plenty of time to diversify a lot from a few, so you might be correct that "lots of species wouldn't have viable seeds". Perhaps they didn't, and just the (relative) few that did are the basis of what we have today.
- colordrops 9y agoLots of seeds remain viable for more than 2 years.
- QAPereo 9y agoIt would also have to remain viable in the sense that no animals starving in the darkness will try to eatthem, or fungus or bacteria running wild. I think you have to assume that are small burrowing ancestors ate pretty much every seed they could get their tiny paws on. We know that quite a few different organisms survived, and while some of them estivated or hibernated most of them presumably we had to live and eat in a roughly normal way.
- colordrops 9y agoSure but there's no way they'd find every single seed on earth.
- rangibaby 9y agoFungi and bacteria don't like the cold. There would be a lot more food to eat for survivors (chickens) as things that they competed with for food (T rex) died off.
- mixmastamyk 9y agoOwls and kiwis prefer the dark.
- QAPereo 9y agoDo their food sources?
- Gingeas 9y agoInteresting point - even though some animals might thrive in the dark, the food chain can also be undermined in a way that it topples the foundation of the members above, thus indirectly destroying it. Owls consume rodents such as squirrels, rats, and mice, which are nocturnal. Kiwis eat grubs and worms - only the latter of which I know can be nocturnal.
- rangibaby 9y agoKiwi's long beak is for scooping things out of the ground. I think it is pretty dark down there.