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As Above So Below
Its possible, we just do not know enough of that era...
Poisonous Plants, Not an Asteroid, May Have Killed the Dinosaurs
Two scientists have come forward with a different explanation for what happened to the dinosaurs. They say it was poisonous plants and dinosaurs’ inability to adapt to the increasing toxicity of their food, rather than a giant fireball from the sky, which caused the extinction of those prehistoric monsters.
The new paper, published in the peer-reviewed journal Ideas in Ecology and Evolution, comes from evolutionary psychology professor Gordon Gallup from the University of Albany and his former student Michael J. Frederick, now at the University of Baltimore. They don’t deny that an asteroid or comet impact probably happened, but they suggest that dinosaurs were already on their way out by the time it hit.
What’s scarier, poisonous plants or world ending asteroids?
The scientists put forward that as toxic plants began to emerge in Earth’s prehistoric wilds, dinosaurs weren’t quick enough to develop “learned taste aversion,” an evolutionary trait by which species learn to identify toxic food by associating the taste of the food with negative effects. To explain the idea of learned taste aversion, Gallup uses the example of why rats are so hard to eliminate:
When rats encounter a new food, they typically sample only a small amount; and if they get sick, they show a remarkable ability to avoid that food again because they associate the taste and smell of it with the negative reaction.
Crocodiles are believed to be one of the closest modern relatives to dinosaurs.
It’s unclear exactly when these toxic plants first came into existence, but Gallup and Frederick say that it coincides with the decline of the dinosaurs. As evidence of this, they point to the fact that when the asteroid hit, it didn’t wipe out all of the dinosaurs all at once.
Also, they point to research they did on birds and crocodiles, believed to be the closest modern relatives to dinosaurs, and they found that birds rely on visual cues to alert them to poisonous plants, while crocodiles are extremely slow to manifest learned taste aversion.
Gallup says:
Poisonous Plants, Not an Asteroid, May Have Killed the Dinosaurs
Two scientists have come forward with a different explanation for what happened to the dinosaurs. They say it was poisonous plants and dinosaurs’ inability to adapt to the increasing toxicity of their food, rather than a giant fireball from the sky, which caused the extinction of those prehistoric monsters.
The new paper, published in the peer-reviewed journal Ideas in Ecology and Evolution, comes from evolutionary psychology professor Gordon Gallup from the University of Albany and his former student Michael J. Frederick, now at the University of Baltimore. They don’t deny that an asteroid or comet impact probably happened, but they suggest that dinosaurs were already on their way out by the time it hit.
What’s scarier, poisonous plants or world ending asteroids?
The scientists put forward that as toxic plants began to emerge in Earth’s prehistoric wilds, dinosaurs weren’t quick enough to develop “learned taste aversion,” an evolutionary trait by which species learn to identify toxic food by associating the taste of the food with negative effects. To explain the idea of learned taste aversion, Gallup uses the example of why rats are so hard to eliminate:
When rats encounter a new food, they typically sample only a small amount; and if they get sick, they show a remarkable ability to avoid that food again because they associate the taste and smell of it with the negative reaction.
Crocodiles are believed to be one of the closest modern relatives to dinosaurs.
It’s unclear exactly when these toxic plants first came into existence, but Gallup and Frederick say that it coincides with the decline of the dinosaurs. As evidence of this, they point to the fact that when the asteroid hit, it didn’t wipe out all of the dinosaurs all at once.
Also, they point to research they did on birds and crocodiles, believed to be the closest modern relatives to dinosaurs, and they found that birds rely on visual cues to alert them to poisonous plants, while crocodiles are extremely slow to manifest learned taste aversion.
Gallup says: