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+--- Thread: Mammals were primed for world domination before dinosaur extinction (/thread-13341.html)
Mammals were primed for world domination before dinosaur extinction - C C - Dec 12, 2022
https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/mammals-were-primed-for-world-domination-before-dinosaur-extinction
EXCERPT: . . . To be clear, when we say ancestors, we’re not talking about early humans, or even the bipedal primates which preceded us. We’re talking about our most distant mammalian ancestors, the tiny rodent-like animals who shuffled quietly underfoot during the late Cretaceous.
We often think of dinosaurs as having been cut down in the prime by a classless, sucker punching, planet-shaking asteroid with an axe to grind. Only afterward did the mammals slide in to fill the ecological gaps the dinosaurs left behind. Right? Maybe not.
The new study, carried out by scientists from the University of Oulu in Finland, the University of Vigo in Spain, and an international team of paleontological collaborators, reveals that mammals were already poised to stage a planetary coup before the asteroid showed up and did the job for them.
Scientists looked at a vast collection of fossils from right around the border between the end of the Cretaceous, roughly 66 million years ago, and the beginning of the Paleogene. They used Markov networks — a kind of probabilistic model — ecological niche partitioning, and Earth System models to reconstruct the ecosystem of ancient North America... (MORE - missing details)