3 ms·
What happened at the K-Pg limit with dinosaurs and crocodiles is similar, both went from being very wide to a handful of species remaining. The difference is wh
by agarsev 5y ago
What happened at the K-Pg limit with dinosaurs and crocodiles is similar, both went from being very wide to a handful of species remaining. The difference is what happened afterwards, when the few (single?) species of dinosaurs that remained diversified into what we now call birds.
The interesting thing from the article is that crocodiles are still evolving rapidly, but not diversifying! they seem to be successful in their narrow and specialist niche.
- Hayarotle 5y agoI wonder how close crocodilians were to being extinct after the K-Pg limit. If they did, they would be another non-dinosaur archosaurian group only known from fossils, like pterosaurs. Someone from such timeline would probably be delighted to see alive, as seeing one would be the as amazing for them as seeing a pterosaur or triceratops would be for us. They're the last living non-avian archosaurs. We sure take crocodilians for granted.
- rozab 5y agoThat sort of aquatic ambush predator niche has always been very successful, so I think we'd end up with a similar animal with a similar body plan that would fill the niche; it's evolved many times before. https://bmcecolevol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2148-13-265 https://bmcecolevol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-...