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After reading this, my main question changed from "why did birds survive" to "why did crocodiles survive".
by hwayne 2y ago
After reading this, my main question changed from "why did birds survive" to "why did crocodiles survive".
- pfdietz 2y agoLow metabolism and they live in fresh water, shielding them from the heating impulse after the impact. Fresh water ecosystems fed by detritus from dead plants could survive the post-impact period of darkness as well.
- lelanthran 2y ago> they live in fresh water, shielding them from the heating impulse after the impact. Does living in the ocean not provide the same benefit?
- ensocode 2y agoso this is why sharks also survived? but why not aquatic saurs?
- holoduke 2y agoDidn't crocodiles evolved two time separately?
- IncreasePosts 2y agoNo? Alligators, ghalials, caimans, and crocs all share a common ancestor ~120MYA that was very similar to all of those species.
- CatWChainsaw 2y ago"Gee, I don't know. Maybe deep down I'm afraid of any apex predator that lived through the K-T extinction. Physically unchanged for a hundred million years, because it's the perfect killing machine. A half ton of cold-blooded fury, the bite force of 20,000 Newtons, and stomach acid so strong it can dissolve bones and hoofs." (Archer)
- pvg 2y agoDon't have an answer other than to say their lineage is sturdy enough to have pulled it off twice - crocodylomorpha were just about the only survivors of their giant and dominant clade in the end-Triassic extinction and, of course, they made it past the asteroid 135 million years later.