BBC Focus Magazine

[Lateralman]

Why till the New Year?? Duh!! 'cos it will take me till then to finish my last Dino-Turkey sandwich!

Question? Am I just speaking to just the one bloke here who has fifty identities?

A guy with a split personality syndrome? You know a multi-dimensional man. A chap that is here, there and everywhere? But never goes out anywhere?

Starting to lose my thread on this thread...no wonder some scientists are mad! Back to the Turkey.

[Shadowwolf]

Question? Am I just speaking to just the one bloke here who has fifty identities?

A guy with a split personality syndrome? You know a multi-dimensional man. A chap that is here, there and everywhere? But never goes out anywhere?

Starting to lose my thread on this thread...no wonder some scientists are mad! Back to the Turkey.

More gibberish, though with a petulant tone.

Just because you expect that everyone would be feting your radical idea does not mean that objection could only be coming from one person. One person mind, that must have created multiple accounts long ago just in case they would ever need to engineer a conspiracy against a "visionary".

[M Paul Lloyd]

Question? Am I just speaking to just the one bloke here who has fifty identities?

A guy with a split personality syndrome? You know a multi-dimensional man. A chap that is here, there and everywhere? But never goes out anywhere?

This is starting to get interesting, you actually think this is the work of just one person?

[BrIDo]

I actually responded earlier in the thread, I'll have you know.

Question? Am I just speaking to just the one bloke here who has fifty identities?

A guy with a split personality syndrome? You know a multi-dimensional man. A chap that is here, there and everywhere? But never goes out anywhere?

Starting to lose my thread on this thread...no wonder some scientists are mad! Back to the Turkey

Oh, we're off to see the wizard... the wonderful wizard of Oz...

[The Beige Avenger]

We are bbcfocusmagazine.com/forum for we are many.

On a lesser forum, this would have indeed been locked a long time ago... you are a science Troll mr Lateralman.

I hope you are enjoying the attention...

But...

until your next bowt of lunancy....

I'm out.

Oh and please experiment on yourself regarding a hot floor.... You know, rather than a bird - which already knows flight - which would be a poor model and as a living thing, does not deserve to experience pain due to your ill-conceived idea. Try to test evolution in a few months and have the nerve to say it will be "published"?I suppose you were being mirthful with the last posts? ... ... maybe the last 79 posts?

[Lateralman]

Ooh! Touched a nerve there! "May the force be with me!" For I have now felt it!!

Lateralman

[Lateralman]

This is still bugging me.

Did the K-T event force sheltering foraging birds to hop and fly?

Many of the ground dwelling birds before the K-T extinction event may have been ground dwelling and foraging. However, after perhaps surviving while taking shelter where forced to hop and flap and eventually fly. Because their dense vegetative cover was burned and the global temperature of the ground would have been radically raised.

Making it too hot to stand in the one spot for too long. We already have evidence that many (or perhaps all,) of the early prehistoric birds manage to survive the K-T extinction event blast by retreating deep into caves and burrows.

Today there are numerous examples of species of bird that make their homes in burrows, crevices, cavities, under waterfalls, gaps and caves such as Puffins, Swallows, Swifts, Kingfishers, Oilbird’s, Burrowing owls, Skuas, Penguins, Rock Doves, Ground Hornbills, Bee-eaters.

All with their very own fall out shelters.

Furthermore, depending on their location and if it was daytime or nighttime when the asteroid hit. Many of these earliest birds may have been roosting instead of roasting.

Leaving the bulk of the larger nesting, walking, or early flying Dinobirds without cover, out in the open, to be incinerated along with the Dinosaurs.

If evidence could be found, as to whether or not the strike took place during the day or the night. Along with what the predicted global seasonal weather patterns where at the time. This may further determine what type of bird or indeed mammal survived the blast. Moreover, whether or not it was already in or out of its safe haven.

For example sleeping or brooding nesting nocturnal or daytime foraging birds.

Then again, perhaps the thought could be similarly applied to some mammal species well into the process of winter hibernation.

The existing solid cover bird types listed above may be the closest living bird relatives to all of their ancestral sanctuary survivors of that K-T catastrophe. The bulk of which today are small and small brained.

In fact, every bird, presently alive might have a genetic link, in one form or another, to these original K-T sheltering nesting survivor groups. If just these shelter seeking, groups alone where first isolated and then genetically tested. This may proffer explanation the origins to all bird biodiversity stemming from these specific shelter groups.

Furthermore, this may in part account for the relatively few really larger species of bird living today compared with the numerous amounts of smaller species.

In addition, this may be why little evidence of their K-T history is revealed. For if, many did survive, then much of the early prehistoric evidence that they may have left behind would have eroded through time. Mainly because of their small stature and their hidden sheltered habitats. Leaving their confined carcases open to predation. Above the level of the K-T boundary.

What is more, it may be possible that many of these shelter nesting bird survivor groups where omnivorous initially and to avoid starvation after the K-T event had to alter their diets because of the sudden lack of plants and fruits. Leaving them without any option to become carnivorous and feed on the abundance of available dead meat.

Many may have only initially altered their fruit eating diet because of the event and later on returned to their vegetarian roots after the earth’s ecology had fully recovered.

After the catastrophe, birds would have no option to seek out food for themselves and their young whether it was on hot ground or not. If they had have been originally ground dwellers they would have had no choice but to hop and flap from an above ground rock to rock or an above ground burnt branch to burnt branch to avoid touching the earth’s surface.

Depending on the time the ground remained hot or dangerous from overhead ejecta as well as predators, these hopping flapping movements would have brought about biological changes in their off spring leading them to evolve and embrace fully-fledged flight.

I still think that it is possible that birds are testing the ground every time they land by hopping just in case it is not suitable or too hot to land on and this drastic environmental change habit factor contributed to their continued survival and bird flight.

[Shadowwolf]

This is still bugging me.

That's generally because you have thus far refused to listen to anything said and don't apply reason or logic to the matter. Still trotting out, "If the evidence could be found," if the conditions were all just as I imagine them to be, if evolution happens as I imagine it to happen, if this, if that, if only! If evidence is found and our understanding of evolutionary processes greatly modified come back, until then I'll just simply dismiss the above as more of your unsubstantiated nonsense.

I still think that it is possible that birds are testing...

Yeah, you see that's because in your mind your ideas are never wrong. So even after pages of you being shown where you're in error you still come out the other end banging the same drum.

[Lateralman]

Look, I am not trying to teach any palaeontologist or ornithologist how to suck fossilised eggs, but really...

[M Paul Lloyd]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

[Nails]

This is still bugging me.

Did the K-T event force sheltering foraging birds to hop and fly?

The K-T extinction was unlikely to have been a single event, it was charcterised by a massive impact which would have had global consequences - but it could not have being a world-wide destruction as many species survived which would have struggled in a 'nuclear winter' type scenario.
Frogs for example, survived pretty well, suggesting that the demise of the dinosaurs was something that took many thousands of years and yet many sepcies survived.

It is a really complex puzzle and the evidence suggests that birds were incredibly well established long before this event.

[Lateralman]

Sorry my fault, you are right I should not have been so specific by focusing on one disaster. Anyhow, if you read it through, admittedly, this is the same drum with a slightly different beat.

Perhaps for the bird survivors of the K-T or any past extinction event, size did matter and small with shelter was beautiful and safe.

Time to hot foot it outta here!

[Lateralman]

Check out this Mr Wolf. “Asteroid killed off early birds.” Announced yesterday on the BBC news by Yale University. Jolly clever those lads at Yale.

[M Paul Lloyd]

Check out this Mr Wolf. “Asteroid killed off early birds.” Announced yesterday on the BBC news by Yale University. Jolly clever those lads at Yale.

That would presumably be this?

Old fossils solve mystery of earliest bird extinction
By Leila Battison Science reporter
Many early bird species suffered from the same catastrophic extinction as the dinosaurs, new research has shown.
The meteorite impact that coincided with the disappearance of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, also saw a rapid decline in primitive bird species.
Only a few bird groups survived through the mass extinction, from which all modern birds are descended.
Researchers at Yale University have published their findings in PNAS this week.

Read more
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14979905

[Shadowwolf]

Most interesting, I presume this was just for the news piece and that nothing is following.

[Lateralman]

Nothings following yet, but I am working on it. Epiphany’s can appear quite unexpectedly!

[M Paul Lloyd]

Epiphany’s can appear quite unexpectedly!

I bet they can.

[Dark One]

I think someone suggested a while ago that Lateralman should get a blog. Do it! You could be the new karl pilkington

[Liam Sheppard]

did anyone see the 'inside natures giants' episode with the cassawary?

very interesting, had lots of dinosaur biology.

there are two families of bird.. one with cassawary, kiwi, emu and ostrich.. and the other has all the other thousands of flying birds.

[M Paul Lloyd]

Oh yes I watched that one, most interesting as I have often wondered how close such birds might have been to Therapod Dinosaurs, and given what is being portrayed in the new BBC Dinosaurs series the gap does seem to be narrowing.