It seems mammals just got lucky
>>18787248Basically in every way but intelligenceBut they would evolve that later too as well most likely
>>18787290Maybe there was a reason the meteor struck.
>>18787248>>18787290>>18787296Birds are dinosaurs and they were BTFO costantly by mammals on land, to the point they could develop full land species only in bumfuck remote areas devoid of mammals (like New Zealand)For another example, see how the Terror Birds were outcompted by North American mammals when the Panama Bridge was formed
>>18787290>>18787334>fell for the evolution meme
>>18787248All of evolution is about getting lucky, both literally and figuratively.
>>18787334birds are theropods which have lost their front claws, teeth and tails.they don't compare to their relatives.
>>18787248During the Cetacean period and part of the Paleozoic era, reptiles dominated mammals and amphibians. When a reptile is speaking, a mammal must listen and remain silent. The reptile wins, again.
>>18787334>Birds are dinosaursNo, they are not. Your image has nothing to do with dinosaurs.
Mammoids, answer me honestly: what was it like being dominated by us from the Triassic all the way to the Cretaceous, without even getting a chance to "evolve" for 186 million years? How does it feel knowing your ancestors lived in the shadows and shitholes while we ruled most of the globe? Your ancestors were nothing more than kibble for our hatchlings. You only "took over" because nature dealt us a bad hand and the Earth shifted to a climate that favored you — and even then, we still rule plenty of rivers and keep preying on you.>saar neocortex saarYeah? So what? You developed better parental care, yet your reproductive success rate still isn't higher than ours lmao. We are pragmatic, and that's all that matters. We will always be your masters.
>>18787408*cracks an egg* Oh, sorry, were you saying something? I was about to make myself breakfast.
>>18787396Birds are theropods
Dinosaurs certainly possessed unique evolutionary advantages, notably their colossal size. Elephants are larger than most dinos, Paraceratherium even resembled sauropods, yet they are nowhere near as massive as Sauropods like the famous Diplodocus or more fairly the late cretaceous Alamosaurus. Mammals of course never evolved a gargantuan land predator like the even more famous Tyrannosaurus. Some hypothesize climate was a factor, but it changed little in the ~20 million years after the Chicxulub impact 65 million years ago (really 66) yet mammals did not evolve to the same size via convergent evolution.On the other hand the blue whale is the largest multicellular being to ever exist proving mammals have some evolutionary advantages in this department. Some hypothesize they would make a blubbery feast for a Plesiosaur, but in reality Plesiosaurs are dwarfed by the sperm whale which in turn poses little threat to the blue whale.>>18787334 mentions birds which are a useful comparison. It is believed modern avians evolved from a single family of Quail-like birds that did not migrate south for the winter, rather pilfered through the snow for insects, which helped them later when masses of dead plant life produced an abundance thereof. Regardless it was lethally cold and lasted years interfering with their breeding patterns no doubt pushing them to the brink, it may well have narrowed them to a single species.A lot of DNA was deleted. These birds were already far removed from the dinosaurs, they were not evolved to handle colossal size or other advantages. See the Dakotasaurus (raptors) with its working arms, talons evolved for pouncing and long balancing tail for high speed running with the clumsy stubby appearance of the terror bird, which itself had diminished to a small area in South America. Popular imagination demands we pit raptors against humans and lions and the like, raptors would change the game but they could not occupy every ecological niche.
>>18787290>Basically in every way but intelligence>But they would evolve that later too as well most likelyThey did, see how crows intelligencemog the vast majority of mammals. Birds are cladistically a group of dinosaurs.
>>18787460>here’s your dinos bro
>>18787468>here's your hominids bro
>>18787353>Birds exist>All the others dinos are long goneYea they dont compare, right. Survival prove birds are the superior dinos and yet they had to flymaxx to avoid being outcompted by mammals
>>18787460Crows are the only birds that can be included in the super big brains Animals tier. Mammals instead have multiple examples outside humans (dogs, dolphins, whales, horses, every single ape)
>>18787443No
>>18787248Better in what sense?
>>18787479dinosaurs and mammals already coexisted and dinosaurs forced them to be the size of rats.mammals could only take their place when they were wiped out by an asteroid impact.even modern birds compete better with mammals than mammals did with dinosaurs, ostriches dwarf any mammal from the Mesozoic.
>>18787447It’s still possible for large birds to evolve in the event of another mass extinction, as mammals’ gestation period is an inherent negative trait that’d prevent all but rodents and cats surviving. Your average crow, gull, goose, and the like are able to fly, are opportunistic in diets, and are more intelligent with societal hierarchies, which makes them different from the K-T quail-like ancestral birds. It’s not completely out that birds may evolve to Moa-like sizes again in the mainland instead of isolated islands. It’d be interesting to speculate about such an ecosystem where giant storks (like the pterosaurs of old), Teratornis-like large ground raptors, Moas, terror birds, and Genyornis-like giant waterfowl are predominant, all of this was possible with Pleistocene birds.Getting any larger would require the re-evolution of a “bony tail”. Birds have a pygostyle, a contracted piece of bone to which the tail feathers attach. If a bird evolves an elongation of the pygostyle, you will see dinosaur locomotion, size, and traits re-emerging in birds. Locomotion and balance of weight are key, and longer bony tails are the key to it.
>>18787248Yes
>>18787248There's no real comparison to be made. Many mammal species also died in the same extinction event, but both mammals and dinosaurs (birds) survive to this day.What kind of metric could we even use? Survival isn't fair and sometimes you get "lucky" or "unlucky", but these depend on how you look at it. A major impact event might be rare from our perspective, but if we think about the fact that dinosaurs were around for 100+ million years it might not seem so "unlucky".
>>18787849Birds have evolved and diversified considerably and more species would survive another Chicxulub level event, however with mammals scuttling around it is unlikely they'd fill the same ecological niches, there would be no evolutionary impetus to evolve into large land mammals besides those we've already seen like ostriches and terror birds. Were they transported back in time to the paleozoic they might, since there would be no competition or predators besides each other, it would happen rapidly in fact since it only took small reptiles 100 million years to evolve into giant dinos and they would surely take less time, but not now.Mammals would survive, especially burrowing animals. Many species of mammals survived the actual event. The deep freeze lasted only 3 years and many surviving mammals would still be sexually mature when the temperature returns to normal, some might be able to reproduce during the freeze due to the abundance of insects. Humans would survive since we can easily store 3 years worth of food and venture to the surface for fuel and water.
>>18787563Okay then pal where do they fit on the evolutionary tree?
>>18787897Chicxulub was unique in that, if it was the main cause of the K-T extinction, it happened quite rapidly relative to other extinction events. A current-day extinction event would instead be caused by runaway climate change and the fallout of human industry/war, and be very slow by comparison, not to mention the climate effects are quite different as well. The situation here is different, and the birds this time around are also different. Unlike the quail-like ancestors of the previous mass extinction event, modern birds often have more efficient locomotion, evolved societal strategies to protect nests, and have in general greater intelligence. In other words, both the extinction scenario and the birds involved are likely quite different, so the same outcome need not happen again.While mammals of some kind would definitely survive, human survival is a whole another matter given that humans will kill themselves and each other for any number of reasons.
>>18787334Why did the terror birds survive in Florida?
