The Great K-T extinction spelled the doom of the giant sea reptiles, all dinosaurs
(unless you count birds as dinosaurs), and many other groups of vertebrates and invertebrates.
In fact, the damage caused by the asteroid that hit Yucatan was so great
that no animal over 50 kilos is known to have survived.

But some groups of birds and mammals did survive, including the remote
ancestors
of the four groups that have survived to this day: the neornithine birds and three groups of mammals:
the placentals, the marsupials, and the monotremes.

To keep this OP reasonably short, I will deal with the two most familiar of the four, the placentals and the modern birds.

A 2013 _Science_ article [1] led to the general acceptance of the hypothesis that all living placentals
have descended from a common ancestor that lived after the great K-T disaster.

However, there are closely related eutherians [2] that also survived for a while, among
whose descendants were the pantodonts, including *Coryphodon*, which was a bit larger than a tapir; and the tillodonts and taeniodonts. These groups died out during the Eocene, which ended almost halfway between the K-T disaster and our time.

The case of birds is generally believed to be quite different: EVERY bird, living
or extinct, that survived the K-T disaster is believed to be descended from the
last common ancestor of living birds. However, there are some articles which
hypothesize that there is one exception, a group of birds called the lithornids.
More about them in my next post to this thread, some time tomorrow.

[1] Maureen A. O'Leary et. al., "The Placental Mammal Ancestor and the Post–K-Pg Radiation of Placentals". Science. 339 (6120): 662–667.

[2] Eutherians are the mammals, extant and extinct, that are more closely related to placentals than to marsupials.
Similarly, metatherians are the mammals that are more closely related to marsupials than to placentals.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

PS The "Why?" at the end of the thread title is two-edged: why did some survive,
and why did others, including some similar-seeming ones, perish?

On Wednesday, November 9, 2022 at 9:14:07 PM UTC-5, Peter Nyikos wrote:

....about a belief that is widespread among paleontologists and systematists,
but with some dissenting articles:

> EVERY bird, living or extinct, that survived the K-T disaster is believed
> to be descended from the last common ancestor of living birds.
>However, there are some articles which hypothesize that there is one exception,
> a group of [long extinct] birds called the lithornids.

The bone of contention here is: did lithornids descend from the
last common ancestor (LCA) of living birds, or not -- did they split off
from the branch leading to the LCA earlier?

A bit of terminology is in order here before going on.

Nowadays, it seems like the word "Aves", which once encompassed every bird
in the classical sense, including *Archaeopteryx*, is coming to be confined to the birds
that descended from the LCA of living birds. The usual name in the past for this much more
restricted group is "Neornithes," and that is what is talked about below,
in a paper by Livezey and Zusi, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2007, 149, 1–95.

"A minor point of contention is the position of Lithornis (Houde, 1988), a relative to palaeognathous Neornithes, inferred to be the sistergroup of Tinamidae by Clarke & Norell (2002) and Clarke (2004), but inferred to be the sister-group of Neornithes by Clarke & Chiappe (2001), Leonard et al.(2005) and the present analysis (Fig. 12)."
https://repository.si.edu/handle/10088/21644

The first set of papers thus has lithornids inside Neornithes, the second set outside.

By the way, lithornids are a very important group in the evolution of birds..

I'll say more about that in my next post to this thread, to be done not long after I
see that this one was posted.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of South Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

The lithornids, about which I wrote in the preceding post to this thread,
got their name (literally, "stone birds") from the fact that the first one
to be described, *Lithornis,* was among the very first fossil birds
to be described in the scientific literature.

Owen described it in 1840, long before anyone had heard of Archaeopteryx.
He thought it was a vulture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithornis

It wasn't until 1988 that Houde, with a well preserved skull of *Lithornis* to study,
found that it was palaeognathous. This put it very far from vultures, which
are neognaths: there is a split right at the base of the tree of birds that
survived the K-T disaster, with paleognaths on one side and neognaths
on the other, according to most paleontologists specializing in birds,
and most systematists, who use cladistic methods to study phylogeny.

The palaeognaths of today comprise all the flightless birds known as ratites,
and the tinamous, which are capable of short flights.

The lithornids were also palaeognathous, but they were strong flyers
capable of covering big distances without alighting. The ratites and
the tinamous are both believed to be descended from them.

They thus account for the widely separated places where ratites
(ostrich, emu, cassowary, rhea, kiwi) are to be found. New Zealand
was never connected to the continents where the other ratites
are to be found. Its ratites included the moas along with the kiwis.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of South Carolina in Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

On Thursday, November 10, 2022 at 2:20:14 PM UTC-8, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> The lithornids, about which I wrote in the preceding post to this thread,
> got their name (literally, "stone birds") from the fact that the first one
> to be described, *Lithornis,* was among the very first fossil birds
> to be described in the scientific literature.
>
> Owen described it in 1840, long before anyone had heard of Archaeopteryx.
> He thought it was a vulture.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithornis
>
> It wasn't until 1988 that Houde, with a well preserved skull of *Lithornis* to study,
> found that it was palaeognathous. This put it very far from vultures, which
> are neognaths: there is a split right at the base of the tree of birds that
> survived the K-T disaster, with paleognaths on one side and neognaths
> on the other, according to most paleontologists specializing in birds,
> and most systematists, who use cladistic methods to study phylogeny.
>
> The palaeognaths of today comprise all the flightless birds known as ratites,
> and the tinamous, which are capable of short flights.
>
> The lithornids were also palaeognathous, but they were strong flyers
> capable of covering big distances without alighting. The ratites and
> the tinamous are both believed to be descended from them.
>
> They thus account for the widely separated places where ratites
> (ostrich, emu, cassowary, rhea, kiwi) are to be found. New Zealand
> was never connected to the continents where the other ratites
> are to be found. Its ratites included the moas along with the kiwis.
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> Univ. of South Carolina in Columbia
> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

You might find this interesting:

https://digitallibrary.amnh.org/bitstream/handle/2246/7237/440-05-field_et_al.pdf?sequence=10&isAllowed=y

On 11/9/22 6:14 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> The Great K-T extinction spelled the doom of the giant sea reptiles, all dinosaurs
> (unless you count birds as dinosaurs), and many other groups of vertebrates and invertebrates.
> In fact, the damage caused by the asteroid that hit Yucatan was so great
> that no animal over 50 kilos is known to have survived.
>
> But some groups of birds and mammals did survive, including the remote
> ancestors
> of the four groups that have survived to this day: the neornithine birds and three groups of mammals:
> the placentals, the marsupials, and the monotremes.
>
> To keep this OP reasonably short, I will deal with the two most familiar of the four, the placentals and the modern birds.
>
> A 2013 _Science_ article [1] led to the general acceptance of the hypothesis that all living placentals
> have descended from a common ancestor that lived after the great K-T disaster.
>
> However, there are closely related eutherians [2] that also survived for a while, among
> whose descendants were the pantodonts, including *Coryphodon*, which was a bit larger than a tapir; and the tillodonts and taeniodonts. These groups died out during the Eocene, which ended almost halfway between the K-T disaster and our time.
>
> The case of birds is generally believed to be quite different: EVERY bird, living
> or extinct, that survived the K-T disaster is believed to be descended from the
> last common ancestor of living birds. However, there are some articles which
> hypothesize that there is one exception, a group of birds called the lithornids.
> More about them in my next post to this thread, some time tomorrow.
>
> [1] Maureen A. O'Leary et. al., "The Placental Mammal Ancestor and the Post–K-Pg Radiation of Placentals". Science. 339 (6120): 662–667.
>
> [2] Eutherians are the mammals, extant and extinct, that are more closely related to placentals than to marsupials.
> Similarly, metatherians are the mammals that are more closely related to marsupials than to placentals.
>
>
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> University of South Carolina
> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
>
> PS The "Why?" at the end of the thread title is two-edged: why did some survive,
> and why did others, including some similar-seeming ones, perish?

What sort of data did the 2013 Science article use to come to its
conclusions? Was later widespread acceptance of the conclusions of the
article based upon generally sound evidence?

On Sunday, November 13, 2022 at 4:07:11 AM UTC-8, Trolidan7 wrote:
> On 11/9/22 6:14 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > The Great K-T extinction spelled the doom of the giant sea reptiles, all dinosaurs
> > (unless you count birds as dinosaurs), and many other groups of vertebrates and invertebrates.
> > In fact, the damage caused by the asteroid that hit Yucatan was so great
> > that no animal over 50 kilos is known to have survived.
> >
> > But some groups of birds and mammals did survive, including the remote
> > ancestors
> > of the four groups that have survived to this day: the neornithine birds and three groups of mammals:
> > the placentals, the marsupials, and the monotremes.
> >
> > To keep this OP reasonably short, I will deal with the two most familiar of the four, the placentals and the modern birds.
> >
> > A 2013 _Science_ article [1] led to the general acceptance of the hypothesis that all living placentals
> > have descended from a common ancestor that lived after the great K-T disaster.
> >
> > However, there are closely related eutherians [2] that also survived for a while, among
> > whose descendants were the pantodonts, including *Coryphodon*, which was a bit larger than a tapir; and the tillodonts and taeniodonts. These groups died out during the Eocene, which ended almost halfway between the K-T disaster and our time.
> >
> > The case of birds is generally believed to be quite different: EVERY bird, living
> > or extinct, that survived the K-T disaster is believed to be descended from the
> > last common ancestor of living birds. However, there are some articles which
> > hypothesize that there is one exception, a group of birds called the lithornids.
> > More about them in my next post to this thread, some time tomorrow.
> >
> > [1] Maureen A. O'Leary et. al., "The Placental Mammal Ancestor and the Post–K-Pg Radiation of Placentals". Science. 339 (6120): 662–667.
> >
> > [2] Eutherians are the mammals, extant and extinct, that are more closely related to placentals than to marsupials.
> > Similarly, metatherians are the mammals that are more closely related to marsupials than to placentals.
> >
> >
> > Peter Nyikos
> > Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> > University of South Carolina
> > http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
> >
> > PS The "Why?" at the end of the thread title is two-edged: why did some survive,
> > and why did others, including some similar-seeming ones, perish?
> What sort of data did the 2013 Science article use to come to its
> conclusions? Was later widespread acceptance of the conclusions of the
> article based upon generally sound evidence?

More recent research in placental evolution is reviewed here:

"Evolutionary Models for the Diversification of Placental Mammals Across the KPg Boundary" (Springer et. al.)
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgene.2019.01241/full

The upshot is that "consensus on the tempo and mode of placental diversification remains elusive".

On 11/13/22 10:14 AM, erik simpson wrote:
> On Sunday, November 13, 2022 at 4:07:11 AM UTC-8, Trolidan7 wrote:
>> On 11/9/22 6:14 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> The Great K-T extinction spelled the doom of the giant sea reptiles, all dinosaurs
>>> (unless you count birds as dinosaurs), and many other groups of vertebrates and invertebrates.
>>> In fact, the damage caused by the asteroid that hit Yucatan was so great
>>> that no animal over 50 kilos is known to have survived.
>>>
>>> But some groups of birds and mammals did survive, including the remote
>>> ancestors
>>> of the four groups that have survived to this day: the neornithine birds and three groups of mammals:
>>> the placentals, the marsupials, and the monotremes.
>>>
>>> To keep this OP reasonably short, I will deal with the two most familiar of the four, the placentals and the modern birds.
>>>
>>> A 2013 _Science_ article [1] led to the general acceptance of the hypothesis that all living placentals
>>> have descended from a common ancestor that lived after the great K-T disaster.
>>>
>>> However, there are closely related eutherians [2] that also survived for a while, among
>>> whose descendants were the pantodonts, including *Coryphodon*, which was a bit larger than a tapir; and the tillodonts and taeniodonts. These groups died out during the Eocene, which ended almost halfway between the K-T disaster and our time.
>>>
>>> The case of birds is generally believed to be quite different: EVERY bird, living
>>> or extinct, that survived the K-T disaster is believed to be descended from the
>>> last common ancestor of living birds. However, there are some articles which
>>> hypothesize that there is one exception, a group of birds called the lithornids.
>>> More about them in my next post to this thread, some time tomorrow.
>>>
>>> [1] Maureen A. O'Leary et. al., "The Placental Mammal Ancestor and the Post–K-Pg Radiation of Placentals". Science. 339 (6120): 662–667.
>>>
>>> [2] Eutherians are the mammals, extant and extinct, that are more closely related to placentals than to marsupials.
>>> Similarly, metatherians are the mammals that are more closely related to marsupials than to placentals.
>>>
>>>
>>> Peter Nyikos
>>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
>>> University of South Carolina
>>> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
>>>
>>> PS The "Why?" at the end of the thread title is two-edged: why did some survive,
>>> and why did others, including some similar-seeming ones, perish?
>> What sort of data did the 2013 Science article use to come to its
>> conclusions? Was later widespread acceptance of the conclusions of the
>> article based upon generally sound evidence?
>
> More recent research in placental evolution is reviewed here:
>
> "Evolutionary Models for the Diversification of Placental Mammals Across the KPg Boundary" (Springer et. al.)
> https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgene.2019.01241/full
>
> The upshot is that "consensus on the tempo and mode of placental diversification remains elusive".

It is rather good that you can simply click on the link and get to
the article.

I have written down the Science 2013 article and see if I can
find it somewhere.

The articles that you have linked to seem to give the idea
that 'we don't know'. That seems quite likely but I will
see if I can find the Science article and see what it might
say.

I am thinking someone somewhere typed that 'penguins are
the best of birds'. I would tend to disagree, for if
there is something that could be called 'advanced' or
'not advanced' I tend to like the song birds or passerines
with their opposable toes for perching.

When looking up the Wikipedia article on the song birds,
however, it seemed to show some charts speculating that they
might have diverged after the KPg boundary, but gave
the idea that the ratites, land fowl, and water fowl
may have all diverged prior to that. I would
tend to think that if any of them diverged during the
Mesozoic that it would be the Paleognaths.

On Monday, November 14, 2022 at 11:13:48 AM UTC-8, Trolidan7 wrote:
> On 11/13/22 10:14 AM, erik simpson wrote:
> > On Sunday, November 13, 2022 at 4:07:11 AM UTC-8, Trolidan7 wrote:
> >> On 11/9/22 6:14 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>> The Great K-T extinction spelled the doom of the giant sea reptiles, all dinosaurs
> >>> (unless you count birds as dinosaurs), and many other groups of vertebrates and invertebrates.
> >>> In fact, the damage caused by the asteroid that hit Yucatan was so great
> >>> that no animal over 50 kilos is known to have survived.
> >>>
> >>> But some groups of birds and mammals did survive, including the remote
> >>> ancestors
> >>> of the four groups that have survived to this day: the neornithine birds and three groups of mammals:
> >>> the placentals, the marsupials, and the monotremes.
> >>>
> >>> To keep this OP reasonably short, I will deal with the two most familiar of the four, the placentals and the modern birds.
> >>>
> >>> A 2013 _Science_ article [1] led to the general acceptance of the hypothesis that all living placentals
> >>> have descended from a common ancestor that lived after the great K-T disaster.
> >>>
> >>> However, there are closely related eutherians [2] that also survived for a while, among
> >>> whose descendants were the pantodonts, including *Coryphodon*, which was a bit larger than a tapir; and the tillodonts and taeniodonts. These groups died out during the Eocene, which ended almost halfway between the K-T disaster and our time.
> >>>
> >>> The case of birds is generally believed to be quite different: EVERY bird, living
> >>> or extinct, that survived the K-T disaster is believed to be descended from the
> >>> last common ancestor of living birds. However, there are some articles which
> >>> hypothesize that there is one exception, a group of birds called the lithornids.
> >>> More about them in my next post to this thread, some time tomorrow.
> >>>
> >>> [1] Maureen A. O'Leary et. al., "The Placental Mammal Ancestor and the Post–K-Pg Radiation of Placentals". Science. 339 (6120): 662–667.
> >>>
> >>> [2] Eutherians are the mammals, extant and extinct, that are more closely related to placentals than to marsupials.
> >>> Similarly, metatherians are the mammals that are more closely related to marsupials than to placentals.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Peter Nyikos
> >>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> >>> University of South Carolina
> >>> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
> >>>
> >>> PS The "Why?" at the end of the thread title is two-edged: why did some survive,
> >>> and why did others, including some similar-seeming ones, perish?
> >> What sort of data did the 2013 Science article use to come to its
> >> conclusions? Was later widespread acceptance of the conclusions of the
> >> article based upon generally sound evidence?
> >
> > More recent research in placental evolution is reviewed here:
> >
> > "Evolutionary Models for the Diversification of Placental Mammals Across the KPg Boundary" (Springer et. al.)
> > https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgene.2019.01241/full
> >
> > The upshot is that "consensus on the tempo and mode of placental diversification remains elusive".
> It is rather good that you can simply click on the link and get to
> the article.
>
> I have written down the Science 2013 article and see if I can
> find it somewhere.
>
> The articles that you have linked to seem to give the idea
> that 'we don't know'. That seems quite likely but I will
> see if I can find the Science article and see what it might
> say.
>
> I am thinking someone somewhere typed that 'penguins are
> the best of birds'. I would tend to disagree, for if
> there is something that could be called 'advanced' or
> 'not advanced' I tend to like the song birds or passerines
> with their opposable toes for perching.
>
> When looking up the Wikipedia article on the song birds,
> however, it seemed to show some charts speculating that they
> might have diverged after the KPg boundary, but gave
> the idea that the ratites, land fowl, and water fowl
> may have all diverged prior to that. I would
> tend to think that if any of them diverged during the
> Mesozoic that it would be the Paleognaths.

Here's the O'Leary et.al. (2013):

https://ri.conicet.gov.ar/bitstream/handle/11336/7302/CONICET_Digital_Nro.9756_A.pdf;jsessionid=10A2C6B4CF23B472582CCA7A281A2C14?sequence=2

On Monday, November 14, 2022 at 2:13:48 PM UTC-5, Trolidan7 wrote:
> On 11/13/22 10:14 AM, erik simpson wrote:
> > On Sunday, November 13, 2022 at 4:07:11 AM UTC-8, Trolidan7 wrote:
> >> On 11/9/22 6:14 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>> The Great K-T extinction spelled the doom of the giant sea reptiles, all dinosaurs
> >>> (unless you count birds as dinosaurs), and many other groups of vertebrates and invertebrates.
> >>> In fact, the damage caused by the asteroid that hit Yucatan was so great
> >>> that no animal over 50 kilos is known to have survived.
> >>>
> >>> But some groups of birds and mammals did survive, including the remote
> >>> ancestors
> >>> of the four groups that have survived to this day: the neornithine birds and three groups of mammals:
> >>> the placentals, the marsupials, and the monotremes.
> >>>
> >>> To keep this OP reasonably short, I will deal with the two most familiar of the four, the placentals and the modern birds.
> >>>
> >>> A 2013 _Science_ article [1] led to the general acceptance of the hypothesis that all living placentals
> >>> have descended from a common ancestor that lived after the great K-T disaster.
> >>>
> >>> However, there are closely related eutherians [2] that also survived for a while, among
> >>> whose descendants were the pantodonts, including *Coryphodon*, which was a bit larger than a tapir; and the tillodonts and taeniodonts. These groups died out during the Eocene, which ended almost halfway between the K-T disaster and our time.
> >>>
> >>> The case of birds is generally believed to be quite different: EVERY bird, living
> >>> or extinct, that survived the K-T disaster is believed to be descended from the
> >>> last common ancestor of living birds. However, there are some articles which
> >>> hypothesize that there is one exception, a group of birds called the lithornids.
> >>> More about them in my next post to this thread, some time tomorrow.
> >>>
> >>> [1] Maureen A. O'Leary et. al., "The Placental Mammal Ancestor and the Post–K-Pg Radiation of Placentals". Science. 339 (6120): 662–667.
> >>>
> >>> [2] Eutherians are the mammals, extant and extinct, that are more closely related to placentals than to marsupials.
> >>> Similarly, metatherians are the mammals that are more closely related to marsupials than to placentals.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Peter Nyikos
> >>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> >>> University of South Carolina
> >>> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
> >>>
> >>> PS The "Why?" at the end of the thread title is two-edged: why did some survive,
> >>> and why did others, including some similar-seeming ones, perish?
> >> What sort of data did the 2013 Science article use to come to its
> >> conclusions? Was later widespread acceptance of the conclusions of the
> >> article based upon generally sound evidence?
> >
> > More recent research in placental evolution is reviewed here:
> >
> > "Evolutionary Models for the Diversification of Placental Mammals Across the KPg Boundary" (Springer et. al.)
> > https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgene.2019.01241/full
> >
> > The upshot is that "consensus on the tempo and mode of placental diversification remains elusive".

> It is rather good that you can simply click on the link and get to
> the article.
>
> I have written down the Science 2013 article and see if I can
> find it somewhere.

Erik gave you a link that works. I call your attention especially to the very detailed
phylogenetic tree on page 663 (the second page of the article).

That article has a colorful history.

Almost immediately, some biologists, including at least one paleontologist,
noted that Protungulatum, which appears on the tree just below the bats,
also had another species that appeared during the late Cretaceous.

This seemed to kill the central finding of the article, which claimed that
the last common ancestor (LCA) of all living placentals appeared after
the K-T boundary, and hence after the Cretaceous.

However, a later and much more detailed phylogenetic analysis
showed Protungulatum as not descended from that LCA.
Unfortunately, I can't remember the title or the authors of
that later research article. My printout of that article was packed away
and I haven't found it yet. It did, however, appear before 2019,
so it probably is covered somewhere in the Frontiers in Science
article Erik linked for you [see above].

> The articles that you have linked to seem to give the idea
> that 'we don't know'. That seems quite likely but I will
> see if I can find the Science article and see what it might
> say.

Unfortunately, as I indicated above, time has marched on
in the world of research. The article Erik linked MIGHT
have the last word in the line of argument I gave above,
but the information in the article is so mashed together, I'm not sure
I can find it, what with not remembering the title of that later article.

Now you shifted from mammals to birds:

> I am thinking someone somewhere typed that 'penguins are
> the best of birds'.

Whatever that means.

> I would tend to disagree, for if
> there is something that could be called 'advanced' or
> 'not advanced' I tend to like the song birds or passerines
> with their opposable toes for perching.
>
> When looking up the Wikipedia article on the song birds,
> however, it seemed to show some charts speculating that they
> might have diverged after the KPg boundary, but gave
> the idea that the ratites, land fowl, and water fowl
> may have all diverged prior to that.

Harshman is of this opinion.

> I would
> tend to think that if any of them diverged during the
> Mesozoic that it would be the Paleognaths.

That does seem likely, but so far, no fossil paleognaths
have turned up.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics
Univ. of South Carolina -- standard disclaimer--
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

On Tuesday, November 15, 2022 at 7:56:06 PM UTC-8, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
...
> Unfortunately, as I indicated above, time has marched on
> in the world of research.
...
This isn't TO (fortunately), but this would otherwise be a great Chez Watt.

On Wednesday, November 16, 2022 at 11:18:45 AM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote:
> On Tuesday, November 15, 2022 at 7:56:06 PM UTC-8, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> ...
> > Unfortunately, as I indicated above, time has marched on
> > in the world of research.
> ...
> This isn't TO (fortunately), but this would otherwise be a great Chez Watt.

Not sure why: what category do you envision?

Do keep in mind that a great Chez Watt does NOT rely on people knowing who uttered it.
Nor, *a fortiori*, does it bank on reputations of the utterer based on unsupported canards in
completely different contexts than the one specified with "as I indicated above."

Anyway, I haven't had the chance to fully catch up with the march of time myself :)
in that context, but I do have a lot of progress to report: I've found the article [1]
that seems to have rehabilitated the central thesis of the 2013 Science article,
that the crown group placentals had their LCA after the K-T disaster.

[1] Halliday, Thomas John Dixon; Upchurch, Paul; Goswami, Anjali (2016-06-29). "Eutherians experienced elevated evolutionary rates in the immediate aftermath of the Cretaceous–Palaeogene mass extinction". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 283 (1833): 20153026.
https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1473028/1/Halliday_et_al-Biological_Reviews.pdf

The article you linked [2] has no specific criticism for this paper,
nor for a 2019 paper by Halliday et.al, [3] which supported the rehabilitation.
However, it does have some very general cautionary notes,
adding a more specific one from this same 2019 paper itself [4].

[2] "Evolutionary Models for the Diversification of Placental Mammals Across the KPg Boundary" (Springer et. al.)
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgene.2019.01241/full

[3] Halliday, T. J., dos Reis, M., Tamuri, A. U., Ferguson-Gow, H., Yang, Z.., Goswami, A. (2019). Rapid morphological evolution in placental mammals post-dates the origin of the crown group. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 286, 20182418. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2018.2418

[4] "Finally, a recent study on morphological evolution in placental mammals concluded that it may be very difficult to distinguish early members of the major placental groups from stem eutherians on the basis of skeletal and dental characters because Cretaceous forms were not ecologically diverse and may appear very similar to each other (Halliday et al., 2019)."

Temporary assessment: the post-K-T crown placental LCA hypothesis still seems
to be the favored one, but nothing like a confident consensus has emerged.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of So. Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

On Wednesday, November 16, 2022 at 9:48:38 AM UTC-8, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Wednesday, November 16, 2022 at 11:18:45 AM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote:
> > On Tuesday, November 15, 2022 at 7:56:06 PM UTC-8, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> > ...
> > > Unfortunately, as I indicated above, time has marched on
> > > in the world of research.
> > ...
> > This isn't TO (fortunately), but this would otherwise be a great Chez Watt.
> Not sure why: what category do you envision?
>
> Do keep in mind that a great Chez Watt does NOT rely on people knowing who uttered it.
> Nor, *a fortiori*, does it bank on reputations of the utterer based on unsupported canards in
> completely different contexts than the one specified with "as I indicated above."
>
>
> Anyway, I haven't had the chance to fully catch up with the march of time myself :)
> in that context, but I do have a lot of progress to report: I've found the article [1]
> that seems to have rehabilitated the central thesis of the 2013 Science article,
> that the crown group placentals had their LCA after the K-T disaster.
>
> [1] Halliday, Thomas John Dixon; Upchurch, Paul; Goswami, Anjali (2016-06-29). "Eutherians experienced elevated evolutionary rates in the immediate aftermath of the Cretaceous–Palaeogene mass extinction". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 283 (1833): 20153026.
> https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1473028/1/Halliday_et_al-Biological_Reviews.pdf
>
> The article you linked [2] has no specific criticism for this paper,
> nor for a 2019 paper by Halliday et.al, [3] which supported the rehabilitation.
> However, it does have some very general cautionary notes,
> adding a more specific one from this same 2019 paper itself [4].
>
> [2] "Evolutionary Models for the Diversification of Placental Mammals Across the KPg Boundary" (Springer et. al.)
> https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgene.2019.01241/full
>
> [3] Halliday, T. J., dos Reis, M., Tamuri, A. U., Ferguson-Gow, H., Yang, Z., Goswami, A. (2019). Rapid morphological evolution in placental mammals post-dates the origin of the crown group. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 286, 20182418. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2018.2418
>
> [4] "Finally, a recent study on morphological evolution in placental mammals concluded that it may be very difficult to distinguish early members of the major placental groups from stem eutherians on the basis of skeletal and dental characters because Cretaceous forms were not ecologically diverse and may appear very similar to each other (Halliday et al., 2019)."
>
>
> Temporary assessment: the post-K-T crown placental LCA hypothesis still seems
> to be the favored one, but nothing like a confident consensus has emerged..
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> University of So. Carolina at Columbia
> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

I don't believe you actually meant to say it's unfortunate that "time has marched on
in the world of research", but you did say it. There's no direct connection to your reputation
intended.

Review papers are just that; summaries of recent work in some area of interest, primarily
intended for those interested, but not intimately involved. Uncertainty is inevitable in periods
of rapid evolution, such as follow major extinction events. Future discoveries may clarify some
aspects, or may not. Fossils are sometimes reluctant witnesses.

On Wednesday, November 16, 2022 at 1:17:35 PM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote:
> On Wednesday, November 16, 2022 at 9:48:38 AM UTC-8, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Wednesday, November 16, 2022 at 11:18:45 AM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote:
> > > On Tuesday, November 15, 2022 at 7:56:06 PM UTC-8, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > ...
> > > > Unfortunately, as I indicated above, time has marched on
> > > > in the world of research.
> > > ...
> > > This isn't TO (fortunately), but this would otherwise be a great Chez Watt.
> > Not sure why: what category do you envision?
> >
> > Do keep in mind that a great Chez Watt does NOT rely on people knowing who uttered it.
> > Nor, *a fortiori*, does it bank on reputations of the utterer based on unsupported canards in
> > completely different contexts than the one specified with "as I indicated above."
> >
> >
> > Anyway, I haven't had the chance to fully catch up with the march of time myself :)
> > in that context, but I do have a lot of progress to report: I've found the article [1]
> > that seems to have rehabilitated the central thesis of the 2013 Science article,
> > that the crown group placentals had their LCA after the K-T disaster.
> >
> > [1] Halliday, Thomas John Dixon; Upchurch, Paul; Goswami, Anjali (2016-06-29). "Eutherians experienced elevated evolutionary rates in the immediate aftermath of the Cretaceous–Palaeogene mass extinction". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 283 (1833): 20153026.
> > https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1473028/1/Halliday_et_al-Biological_Reviews.pdf
> >
> > The article you linked [2] has no specific criticism for this paper,
> > nor for a 2019 paper by Halliday et.al, [3] which supported the rehabilitation.
> > However, it does have some very general cautionary notes,
> > adding a more specific one from this same 2019 paper itself [4].
> >
> > [2] "Evolutionary Models for the Diversification of Placental Mammals Across the KPg Boundary" (Springer et. al.)
> > https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgene.2019.01241/full
> >
> > [3] Halliday, T. J., dos Reis, M., Tamuri, A. U., Ferguson-Gow, H., Yang, Z., Goswami, A. (2019). Rapid morphological evolution in placental mammals post-dates the origin of the crown group. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 286, 20182418. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2018.2418
> >
> > [4] "Finally, a recent study on morphological evolution in placental mammals concluded that it may be very difficult to distinguish early members of the major placental groups from stem eutherians on the basis of skeletal and dental characters because Cretaceous forms were not ecologically diverse and may appear very similar to each other (Halliday et al., 2019)."
> >
> >
> > Temporary assessment: the post-K-T crown placental LCA hypothesis still seems
> > to be the favored one, but nothing like a confident consensus has emerged.
> > Peter Nyikos
> > Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> > University of So. Carolina at Columbia
> > http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

> I don't believe you actually meant to say it's unfortunate that "time has marched on
> in the world of research", but you did say it.

You should believe it, because I only meant it in the context of what Trolidus7
had said to you, which you snipped:

"The articles that you have linked to seem to give the idea that 'we don't know'. That seems quite likely
but I will see if I can find the Science article and see what it might say."

The unfortunate part of the second sentence is that the 2013 Science article will not shed light
on the first sentence, because one of the articles you linked came afterwards
and was well aware of the pros and cons of the 2013 Science article.

IOW, if I had not said what I did, Trolidus7 might have spent a lot of time before becoming
disappointed over how little light the 2013 article shed on the issue of the first sentence.

> There's no direct connection to your reputation
> intended.

That depends on how completely you forgot the part of the context that I recalled.

> Review papers are just that; summaries of recent work in some area of interest, primarily
> intended for those interested, but not intimately involved.

Now that I've read it with keen attention to detail for the first time, that 2013 Science paper turns out to be
just an extended research announcement, IOW a review paper on the authors' recent work
that one hopes is sufficiently covered in the Supplementary materials.

Unfortunately, :)
the link you gave to that article does not give immediate direct link to the Supplementary Materials.
Fortunately, I was able to get at them by the highlight-copy-and-paste-in-browser method:
https://www.science.org/action/downloadSupplement?doi=10.1126%2Fscience.1229237&file=1229237oleary.sm.pdf

This Supplement is much more detailed and complicated than the paper,
and I doubt that I can get around to it until late next week.
By then, John Harshman might be able to assess how good its use of various phylogenetic methods is.

> Uncertainty is inevitable in periods
> of rapid evolution, such as follow major extinction events.

Not just rapid evolution, but rapid expansion in disparity. A big irony is that uncertainty seems
to surround the most interesting and far-reaching expansions, such as the base of
Theria, of Avialae, of Neornithes, of Archosauria, of Diapsida, of Synapsida, of Amniota,
of Tetrapoda, of Vertebrata, and the most enigmatic of all: of Eumetazoa,
all of which took place ca. the Cambrian Explosion.

>Future discoveries may clarify some
> aspects, or may not. Fossils are sometimes reluctant witnesses.

All too true.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of So. Carolina in Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

On 11/15/22 7:56 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Monday, November 14, 2022 at 2:13:48 PM UTC-5, Trolidan7 wrote:
>> On 11/13/22 10:14 AM, erik simpson wrote:
>>> On Sunday, November 13, 2022 at 4:07:11 AM UTC-8, Trolidan7 wrote:
>>>> On 11/9/22 6:14 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>> The Great K-T extinction spelled the doom of the giant sea reptiles, all dinosaurs
>>>>> (unless you count birds as dinosaurs), and many other groups of vertebrates and invertebrates.
>>>>> In fact, the damage caused by the asteroid that hit Yucatan was so great
>>>>> that no animal over 50 kilos is known to have survived.
>>>>>
>>>>> But some groups of birds and mammals did survive, including the remote
>>>>> ancestors
>>>>> of the four groups that have survived to this day: the neornithine birds and three groups of mammals:
>>>>> the placentals, the marsupials, and the monotremes.
>>>>>
>>>>> To keep this OP reasonably short, I will deal with the two most familiar of the four, the placentals and the modern birds.
>>>>>
>>>>> A 2013 _Science_ article [1] led to the general acceptance of the hypothesis that all living placentals
>>>>> have descended from a common ancestor that lived after the great K-T disaster.
>>>>>
>>>>> However, there are closely related eutherians [2] that also survived for a while, among
>>>>> whose descendants were the pantodonts, including *Coryphodon*, which was a bit larger than a tapir; and the tillodonts and taeniodonts. These groups died out during the Eocene, which ended almost halfway between the K-T disaster and our time.
>>>>>
>>>>> The case of birds is generally believed to be quite different: EVERY bird, living
>>>>> or extinct, that survived the K-T disaster is believed to be descended from the
>>>>> last common ancestor of living birds. However, there are some articles which
>>>>> hypothesize that there is one exception, a group of birds called the lithornids.
>>>>> More about them in my next post to this thread, some time tomorrow.
>>>>>
>>>>> [1] Maureen A. O'Leary et. al., "The Placental Mammal Ancestor and the Post–K-Pg Radiation of Placentals". Science. 339 (6120): 662–667.
>>>>>
>>>>> [2] Eutherians are the mammals, extant and extinct, that are more closely related to placentals than to marsupials.
>>>>> Similarly, metatherians are the mammals that are more closely related to marsupials than to placentals.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Peter Nyikos
>>>>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
>>>>> University of South Carolina
>>>>> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
>>>>>
>>>>> PS The "Why?" at the end of the thread title is two-edged: why did some survive,
>>>>> and why did others, including some similar-seeming ones, perish?
>>>> What sort of data did the 2013 Science article use to come to its
>>>> conclusions? Was later widespread acceptance of the conclusions of the
>>>> article based upon generally sound evidence?
>>>
>>> More recent research in placental evolution is reviewed here:
>>>
>>> "Evolutionary Models for the Diversification of Placental Mammals Across the KPg Boundary" (Springer et. al.)
>>> https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgene.2019.01241/full
>>>
>>> The upshot is that "consensus on the tempo and mode of placental diversification remains elusive".
>
>
>> It is rather good that you can simply click on the link and get to
>> the article.
>>
>> I have written down the Science 2013 article and see if I can
>> find it somewhere.
>
> Erik gave you a link that works. I call your attention especially to the very detailed
> phylogenetic tree on page 663 (the second page of the article).
>
> That article has a colorful history.
>
> Almost immediately, some biologists, including at least one paleontologist,
> noted that Protungulatum, which appears on the tree just below the bats,
> also had another species that appeared during the late Cretaceous.
>
> This seemed to kill the central finding of the article, which claimed that
> the last common ancestor (LCA) of all living placentals appeared after
> the K-T boundary, and hence after the Cretaceous.
>
> However, a later and much more detailed phylogenetic analysis
> showed Protungulatum as not descended from that LCA.
> Unfortunately, I can't remember the title or the authors of
> that later research article. My printout of that article was packed away
> and I haven't found it yet. It did, however, appear before 2019,
> so it probably is covered somewhere in the Frontiers in Science
> article Erik linked for you [see above].
>
>> The articles that you have linked to seem to give the idea
>> that 'we don't know'. That seems quite likely but I will
>> see if I can find the Science article and see what it might
>> say.
>
> Unfortunately, as I indicated above, time has marched on
> in the world of research. The article Erik linked MIGHT
> have the last word in the line of argument I gave above,
> but the information in the article is so mashed together, I'm not sure
> I can find it, what with not remembering the title of that later article.
>
>
> Now you shifted from mammals to birds:
>
>> I am thinking someone somewhere typed that 'penguins are
>> the best of birds'.
>
> Whatever that means.
>
>> I would tend to disagree, for if
>> there is something that could be called 'advanced' or
>> 'not advanced' I tend to like the song birds or passerines
>> with their opposable toes for perching.
>>
>> When looking up the Wikipedia article on the song birds,
>> however, it seemed to show some charts speculating that they
>> might have diverged after the KPg boundary, but gave
>> the idea that the ratites, land fowl, and water fowl
>> may have all diverged prior to that.
>
> Harshman is of this opinion.
>
> > I would
>> tend to think that if any of them diverged during the
>> Mesozoic that it would be the Paleognaths.
>
> That does seem likely, but so far, no fossil paleognaths
> have turned up.
>
>
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics
> Univ. of South Carolina -- standard disclaimer--
> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

It is amazing that you can come up with these articles
that I can click on and see by just posting these links.

At some point I am thinking I may want to tour some local
libraries, however some time again.

It would seem to me bad if it has been common in recent
times for libraries to throw out such material thinking
that internet forms are adequate, and then all the links
mutated into something that could no longer be found or
used because of paywalls or simply errors.

Thank you both for the links and references.

On Wednesday, November 16, 2022 at 7:05:55 PM UTC-5, Trolidan7 wrote:
> On 11/15/22 7:56 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Monday, November 14, 2022 at 2:13:48 PM UTC-5, Trolidan7 wrote:
> >> On 11/13/22 10:14 AM, erik simpson wrote:
> >>> On Sunday, November 13, 2022 at 4:07:11 AM UTC-8, Trolidan7 wrote:
> >>>> On 11/9/22 6:14 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>>> The Great K-T extinction spelled the doom of the giant sea reptiles, all dinosaurs
> >>>>> (unless you count birds as dinosaurs), and many other groups of vertebrates and invertebrates.
> >>>>> In fact, the damage caused by the asteroid that hit Yucatan was so great
> >>>>> that no animal over 50 kilos is known to have survived.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> But some groups of birds and mammals did survive, including the remote
> >>>>> ancestors
> >>>>> of the four groups that have survived to this day: the neornithine birds and three groups of mammals:
> >>>>> the placentals, the marsupials, and the monotremes.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> To keep this OP reasonably short, I will deal with the two most familiar of the four, the placentals and the modern birds.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> A 2013 _Science_ article [1] led to the general acceptance of the hypothesis that all living placentals
> >>>>> have descended from a common ancestor that lived after the great K-T disaster.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> However, there are closely related eutherians [2] that also survived for a while, among
> >>>>> whose descendants were the pantodonts, including *Coryphodon*, which was a bit larger than a tapir; and the tillodonts and taeniodonts. These groups died out during the Eocene, which ended almost halfway between the K-T disaster and our time.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> The case of birds is generally believed to be quite different: EVERY bird, living
> >>>>> or extinct, that survived the K-T disaster is believed to be descended from the
> >>>>> last common ancestor of living birds. However, there are some articles which
> >>>>> hypothesize that there is one exception, a group of birds called the lithornids.
> >>>>> More about them in my next post to this thread, some time tomorrow.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> [1] Maureen A. O'Leary et. al., "The Placental Mammal Ancestor and the Post–K-Pg Radiation of Placentals". Science. 339 (6120): 662–667.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> [2] Eutherians are the mammals, extant and extinct, that are more closely related to placentals than to marsupials.
> >>>>> Similarly, metatherians are the mammals that are more closely related to marsupials than to placentals.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Peter Nyikos
> >>>>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> >>>>> University of South Carolina
> >>>>> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
> >>>>>
> >>>>> PS The "Why?" at the end of the thread title is two-edged: why did some survive,
> >>>>> and why did others, including some similar-seeming ones, perish?
> >>>> What sort of data did the 2013 Science article use to come to its
> >>>> conclusions? Was later widespread acceptance of the conclusions of the
> >>>> article based upon generally sound evidence?
> >>>
> >>> More recent research in placental evolution is reviewed here:
> >>>
> >>> "Evolutionary Models for the Diversification of Placental Mammals Across the KPg Boundary" (Springer et. al.)
> >>> https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgene.2019.01241/full
> >>>
> >>> The upshot is that "consensus on the tempo and mode of placental diversification remains elusive".
> >
> >
> >> It is rather good that you can simply click on the link and get to
> >> the article.
> >>
> >> I have written down the Science 2013 article and see if I can
> >> find it somewhere.
> >
> > Erik gave you a link that works. I call your attention especially to the very detailed
> > phylogenetic tree on page 663 (the second page of the article).
> >
> > That article has a colorful history.
> >
> > Almost immediately, some biologists, including at least one paleontologist,
> > noted that Protungulatum, which appears on the tree just below the bats,
> > also had another species that appeared during the late Cretaceous.
> >
> > This seemed to kill the central finding of the article, which claimed that
> > the last common ancestor (LCA) of all living placentals appeared after
> > the K-T boundary, and hence after the Cretaceous.
> >
> > However, a later and much more detailed phylogenetic analysis
> > showed Protungulatum as not descended from that LCA.
> > Unfortunately, I can't remember the title or the authors of
> > that later research article. My printout of that article was packed away
> > and I haven't found it yet. It did, however, appear before 2019,
> > so it probably is covered somewhere in the Frontiers in Science
> > article Erik linked for you [see above].

Happy update: Google was my friend: I found the article by looking up Protungulatum
in Wikipedia and recognizing the name of the author in one of the references.
It was a 2016 article by Halliday et. al. I gave full bibliographic information on it in my last
reply I did to Erik yesterday, including a link to a fine digital copy.

<snip for focus>

> >> When looking up the Wikipedia article on the song birds,
> >> however, it seemed to show some charts speculating that they
> >> might have diverged after the KPg boundary, but gave
> >> the idea that the ratites, land fowl, and water fowl
> >> may have all diverged prior to that.
> >
> > Harshman is of this opinion.
> >
> > > I would
> >> tend to think that if any of them diverged during the
> >> Mesozoic that it would be the Paleognaths.
> >
> > That does seem likely, but so far, no fossil paleognaths
> > have turned up.

I meant, of course, no fossil paleognaths of the Cretaceous.

> It is amazing that you can come up with these articles
> that I can click on and see by just posting these links.

There is sometimes some hard work in the background to
find webpages where a copy of an article is not paywalled.
I couldn't find one for the Science 2013 article, but Erik came
through with one.

There is also a matter of quality. At one time, I had access to
a copy of that same article where that phylogenetic tree could be
magnified. The one Erik found does not have that capability and
so I have to sometimes use a magnifying glass to make out certain features.

>
> At some point I am thinking I may want to tour some local
> libraries, however some time again.
>
> It would seem to me bad if it has been common in recent
> times for libraries to throw out such material thinking
> that internet forms are adequate, and then all the links
> mutated into something that could no longer be found or
> used because of paywalls or simply errors.

Libraries have been deteriorating in various ways. One small branch
of the biggest library in the Columbia area has stopped using
the Dewey decimal system and arranges books according to
the names of authors! I hope that doesn't catch on elsewhere!

Our university library has long had a habit of carting off books
to a faraway annex if they have not been checked out in ten years.
I used to go to the library at least once a year to look things up in
a popular book in topology, but didn't see any reason to check it out.
Then one day it was no longer available except by putting in a request to the annex.

> Thank you both for the links and references.

Glad to be of help. I hope you keep following this thread,
because I have lots more to contribute to it.
Tomorrow, I will have a post on monotremes. Next week,
Monday, I'll have another on birds; then come marsupials.

Peter Nyikos

On 11/9/22 21:14, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> To keep this OP reasonably short, I will deal with the two most familiar of the four, the placentals and the modern birds.

short?

Frogs hopped right through.

On 11/10/22 17:20, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> They thus account for the widely separated places where ratites
> (ostrich, emu, cassowary, rhea, kiwi) are to be found. New Zealand
> was never connected to the continents where the other ratites
> are to be found. Its ratites included the moas along with the kiwis.

The real question is how would they taste on Thanksgiving!

Good week one and all.

On Sunday, November 20, 2022 at 8:26:25 AM UTC-8, Popping Mad wrote:
> On 11/10/22 17:20, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > They thus account for the widely separated places where ratites
> > (ostrich, emu, cassowary, rhea, kiwi) are to be found. New Zealand
> > was never connected to the continents where the other ratites
> > are to be found. Its ratites included the moas along with the kiwis.
> The real question is how would they taste on Thanksgiving!
>
>
> Good week one and all.

Emus aren't bad, but they don't taste like turkey.

On 11/20/22 11:36, erik simpson wrote:
> Emus aren't bad, but they don't taste like turkey.

try roasted yellow canary in a puffery roll with a dab of powered sugar.
It does great with Irish Coffee at the fireplace before the main course
....

On Sunday, November 20, 2022 at 3:49:15 PM UTC-8, Popping Mad wrote:
> On 11/20/22 11:36, erik simpson wrote:
> > Emus aren't bad, but they don't taste like turkey.
> try roasted yellow canary in a puffery roll with a dab of powered sugar.
> It does great with Irish Coffee at the fireplace before the main course
> ...
Here's hoping you aren't serious! Emu is actully sold in groceries and listed on
the menu of many restaurants in Oz. It's red meat, and as I said, not at all like
turkey. Ostrich meat is available in the US, but I've never eaten any. I understand
it's like emu; red, more similar in taste to beef than the birds we're more used to.

On Friday, November 18, 2022 at 11:16:28 AM UTC-5, Popping Mad wrote:
> On 11/9/22 21:14, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > To keep this OP reasonably short, I will deal with the two most familiar of the four, the placentals and the modern birds.
> short?
>
> Frogs hopped right through.

I'm not familiar with that figure of speech.

By the way, I started a thread last month whose title ended ATTN: Popping mad.
The following link takes you to why I wanted to catch your attention:

https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/U-99grFea8E/m/fQjzHZNyAwAJ
Re: Hesperornid Acquisition here in Columbia ATTN: Popping mad
Oct 14, 2022, 7:54:33 PM

Hope to see you over there.

Peter Nyikos

On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 9:10:34 PM UTC-5, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Wednesday, November 16, 2022 at 7:05:55 PM UTC-5, Trolidan7 wrote:

> > Thank you both for the links and references.
> Glad to be of help. I hope you keep following this thread,
> because I have lots more to contribute to it.
> Tomorrow, I will have a post on monotremes. Next week,
> Monday, I'll have another on birds; then come marsupials.

The best laid plans of mice and men...

I hope you haven't given up waiting. Here is the post on monotremes; then tomorrow,
unless my family has a very full schedule, comes the next one on birds.

Monotremes have a very sparse fossil record, but it goes back to the early Cretaceous,
over 100 mya, when there were at least three different genera: Steropodon, Kryoryctes, and Teinolophos.
Then, except for some disputed specimens, there is nothing until the only non-Australian
known monotreme, Monotrematum sudamericanum – 61 million years old, past the K-T
extinction event. Some classify it as a species of Obdurodon, otherwise known from
the early Miocene (24 mya) to the very late Miocene, 5 mya. If the identification
is correct, then Obdurodon was a "living fossil" by the time it became extinct.

Obdurodon was quite similar to the living platypus, except that it had some teeth
as an adult. The living platypus, Ornithorhynchus anatinus, only has milk teeth
and when those are shed, only the familiar bill remains.

If Monotrematum was actually an Obdurodon, then it is quite probable
that Obdurodon was a K-T survivor, the lone monotreme with that distinction..

A funny thing about all these monotremes: they all are believed
to be "duckbills" of some sort. The echidnas diverged from them
at some time and have obviously undergone some drastic changes in their mouth parts.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics
University of So. Carolina -- standard disclaimer--
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

On 11/23/22 7:26 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 9:10:34 PM UTC-5, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>> On Wednesday, November 16, 2022 at 7:05:55 PM UTC-5, Trolidan7 wrote:
>
>>> Thank you both for the links and references.
>> Glad to be of help. I hope you keep following this thread,
>> because I have lots more to contribute to it.
>> Tomorrow, I will have a post on monotremes. Next week,
>> Monday, I'll have another on birds; then come marsupials.
>
> The best laid plans of mice and men...
>
> I hope you haven't given up waiting. Here is the post on monotremes; then tomorrow,
> unless my family has a very full schedule, comes the next one on birds.
>
> Monotremes have a very sparse fossil record, but it goes back to the early Cretaceous,
> over 100 mya, when there were at least three different genera: Steropodon, Kryoryctes, and Teinolophos.
> Then, except for some disputed specimens, there is nothing until the only non-Australian
> known monotreme, Monotrematum sudamericanum – 61 million years old, past the K-T
> extinction event. Some classify it as a species of Obdurodon, otherwise known from
> the early Miocene (24 mya) to the very late Miocene, 5 mya. If the identification
> is correct, then Obdurodon was a "living fossil" by the time it became extinct.
>
> Obdurodon was quite similar to the living platypus, except that it had some teeth
> as an adult. The living platypus, Ornithorhynchus anatinus, only has milk teeth
> and when those are shed, only the familiar bill remains.
>
> If Monotrematum was actually an Obdurodon, then it is quite probable
> that Obdurodon was a K-T survivor, the lone monotreme with that distinction.
>
> A funny thing about all these monotremes: they all are believed
> to be "duckbills" of some sort. The echidnas diverged from them
> at some time and have obviously undergone some drastic changes in their mouth parts.

Well, you know, surfing it some gives me the idea that for a
lot of this phenomena a lot of information is derived from
fossil tooth structure. I get the idea that Multituberculata
survived the K-T boundary, but they died out before the present.

It seems feasible to me that if they had survived to the
present they could have been classified as separate and
distinct among the living mammals like the monotremes.

Or would their reproductive strategies have been similar
enough to either the monotremes, marsupials, or placental
mammals for them to have been classified as curious members
of one of the others until recently through genetics?

I guess you can infer the existence of 'milk teeth'
from fossils. It is reasonable that theoretically
inferring from the existence of 'milk teeth' that members
of multituberculata gave or drank milk at some point in
their life cycle?

> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics
> University of So. Carolina -- standard disclaimer--
> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

On 11/24/22 11:47 AM, Trolidan7 wrote:
> On 11/23/22 7:26 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>> On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 9:10:34 PM UTC-5, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Wednesday, November 16, 2022 at 7:05:55 PM UTC-5, Trolidan7 wrote:
>>
>>>> Thank you both for the links and references.
>>> Glad to be of help. I hope you keep following this thread,
>>> because I have lots more to contribute to it.
>>> Tomorrow, I will have a post on monotremes. Next week,
>>> Monday, I'll have another on birds; then come marsupials.
>>
>> The best laid plans of mice and men...
>>
>> I hope you haven't given up waiting. Here is the post on monotremes;
>> then tomorrow,
>> unless my family has a very full schedule, comes the next one on birds.
>>
>> Monotremes have a very sparse fossil record, but it goes back to the
>> early Cretaceous,
>> over 100 mya, when there were at least three different genera:
>> Steropodon, Kryoryctes, and Teinolophos.
>> Then, except for some disputed specimens, there is nothing until the
>> only non-Australian
>> known monotreme, Monotrematum sudamericanum – 61 million years old,
>> past the K-T
>> extinction event. Some classify it as a species of Obdurodon,
>> otherwise known from
>> the early Miocene (24 mya) to the very late Miocene, 5 mya. If the
>> identification
>> is correct, then Obdurodon was a "living fossil" by the time it became
>> extinct.
>>
>> Obdurodon was quite similar to the living platypus, except that it had
>> some teeth
>> as an adult. The living platypus, Ornithorhynchus anatinus, only has
>> milk teeth
>> and when those are shed, only the familiar bill remains.
>>
>> If Monotrematum was actually an Obdurodon, then it is quite probable
>> that Obdurodon was a K-T survivor, the lone monotreme with that
>> distinction.
>>
>> A funny thing about all these monotremes: they all are believed
>> to be "duckbills" of some sort. The echidnas diverged from them
>> at some time and have obviously undergone some drastic changes in
>> their mouth parts.
>
> Well, you know, surfing it some gives me the idea that for a
> lot of this phenomena a lot of information is derived from
> fossil tooth structure.  I get the idea that Multituberculata
> survived the K-T boundary, but they died out before the present.
>
> It seems feasible to me that if they had survived to the
> present they could have been classified as separate and
> distinct among the living mammals like the monotremes.
>
> Or would their reproductive strategies have been similar
> enough to either the monotremes, marsupials, or placental
> mammals for them to have been classified as curious members
> of one of the others until recently through genetics?
>
> I guess you can infer the existence of 'milk teeth'
> from fossils.  It is reasonable that theoretically
> inferring from the existence of 'milk teeth' that members
> of multituberculata gave or drank milk at some point in
> their life cycle?

You know, when I think about it, 'milk
teeth' is just a name. It is possible
for a person to consume a glass of milk
without having any milk teeth.

Who knows what these animals may have
been like.

>> Peter Nyikos
>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics
>> University of So. Carolina  -- standard disclaimer--
>> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
>

On Thursday, November 24, 2022 at 2:47:34 PM UTC-5, Trolidan7 wrote:
> On 11/23/22 7:26 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 9:10:34 PM UTC-5, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >> On Wednesday, November 16, 2022 at 7:05:55 PM UTC-5, Trolidan7 wrote:
> >
> >>> Thank you both for the links and references.
> >> Glad to be of help. I hope you keep following this thread,
> >> because I have lots more to contribute to it.
> >> Tomorrow, I will have a post on monotremes. Next week,
> >> Monday, I'll have another on birds; then come marsupials.
> >
> > The best laid plans of mice and men...
> >
> > I hope you haven't given up waiting. Here is the post on monotremes; then tomorrow,
> > unless my family has a very full schedule, comes the next one on birds.
> >
> > Monotremes have a very sparse fossil record, but it goes back to the early Cretaceous,
> > over 100 mya, when there were at least three different genera: Steropodon, Kryoryctes, and Teinolophos.
> > Then, except for some disputed specimens, there is nothing until the only non-Australian
> > known monotreme, Monotrematum sudamericanum – 61 million years old, past the K-T
> > extinction event. Some classify it as a species of Obdurodon, otherwise known from
> > the early Miocene (24 mya) to the very late Miocene, 5 mya. If the identification
> > is correct, then Obdurodon was a "living fossil" by the time it became extinct.
> >
> > Obdurodon was quite similar to the living platypus, except that it had some teeth
> > as an adult. The living platypus, Ornithorhynchus anatinus, only has milk teeth
> > and when those are shed, only the familiar bill remains.
> >
> > If Monotrematum was actually an Obdurodon, then it is quite probable
> > that Obdurodon was a K-T survivor, the lone monotreme with that distinction.
> >
> > A funny thing about all these monotremes: they all are believed
> > to be "duckbills" of some sort. The echidnas diverged from them
> > at some time and have obviously undergone some drastic changes in their mouth parts.

One strange feature of the Science 2013 article that Erik linked
for us is that it puts the fork between platypuses and echidnas
right about the time of the first confirmed fossil of *Obdurodon*,
for no reason I could see. Since the first known fossils of
echidnas came later, it puts in a light streak for "ghost taxa"
between them and the fork.

Unless the authors have some molecular clock arguments that I missed,
they could just as easily have put the fork further back
and had ghost taxa stretching from it to both families.

Molecular clock arguments are a two-edged sword: some
would invalidate the thesis that the placental crown group
goes back to AFTER the K-T disaster, which the 2013 article endorses.

> Well, you know, surfing it some gives me the idea that for a
> lot of this phenomena a lot of information is derived from
> fossil tooth structure. I get the idea that Multituberculata
> survived the K-T boundary, but they died out before the present.

Multituberculata is part of a separate infraclass of Mammalia from both Theria [1]
and Prototheria (including Monotremata), and I was only going to look at it
closely later. However, it is clear that several lines from it made it
past the K-T boundary. In fact, the wiki entry says that they reached
their greatest diversity in the Upper Cretaceous and Paleocene,
almost as though the K-T disaster had hardly touched them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multituberculata

However, I intend to look deeper into this before
making any definite claims.

[1] placentals and marsupials (or eutherians and metatherians if
you take into account extinct lineages after placentals split from marsupials).

> It seems feasible to me that if they had survived to the
> present they could have been classified as separate and
> distinct among the living mammals like the monotremes.

Absolutely. This has been the general opinion of paleontologists
for well over a century now, and the wiki entry goes into some of
the differences.

> Or would their reproductive strategies have been similar
> enough to either the monotremes, marsupials, or placental
> mammals for them to have been classified as curious members
> of one of the others until recently through genetics?

Reproductive strategies are surprisingly different even within
Placentalia, and are not a good guide for relationships.

It is even conceivable that monotremes are secondarily
egg layers with a common ancestor that gave live birth.
Their eggs seem to be unique in that they absorb complex
nutrients from the uterus, and not just water and gases
like with the eggs of almost all oviparous vertebrates.
>
> I guess you can infer the existence of 'milk teeth'
> from fossils.

Yes, there is a big difference between the primary ("milk")
teeth of mammals, which are shed at some point in development,
and the permanent adult teeth. I believe any comparative
anatomist can tell the difference.

> It is reasonable that theoretically
> inferring from the existence of 'milk teeth' that members
> of multituberculata gave or drank milk at some point in
> their life cycle?

Not from teeth: mammals are *defined* among living vertebrates as
giving milk from glands in the skin. The dividing line
has to do with the bones in the ear, whether there is
only the stapes as in reptiles (more relevantly, therapsids)
or there are also the malleus and incus. These were
formerly tiny jaw bones known as the angular and quadrate,
which formed the therapsid jaw joint, and then migrated to the middle ear.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of So. Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

PS I forgot that my family's celebrating of Thanksgiving
would cut into my posting time. I'll try to get back to
the question of which bird lineages survived the K-T disaster
tomorrow.