Contrary to popular belief, it was not an asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. It was a supernova, 880 light-years away ((Astronomical Journal, v.77, pp.210-214 (April 1972)). The dinosaurs show evidence of a lot of radiation.
The minumum size to cause a mass extinction at that distance is 26 solar masses. Even if it had been 200 solar masses (that's how big the largest known star is), any dinosaur under 18 feet of rock at the time would have survived.
OK, what's my point?
The velociraptors were as smart as chimpanzees are today. It was only five million years from chimpanzees to humans.
The last few million years of the Cretaceous showed a marked reduction in diversity of dinosaur species: the earlier vigorous adaptive radiation of the hadrosaurs and the ceratopsians similarly gave way to a yielding of variety. For the last two million years of the Cretaceous, a single genus of each—- saurolophus and triceratops respectively—- dominated the landscape, although they did so in vast numbers.
No gradual environmental change is going to eliminate genetic variation in genus after genus of dinosaurs. That very variation will guarantee adaptation to the changes by natural selection before genetic variation has been significantly pruned. The motive power of evolution is expansion of diversity with environmental change. The dinosaurs' loss of variety is much more characteristic of the loss of variety in species we are seeing today—- by unnatural selection—- at the hand of man.
Caches of bones of a single species are regarded by paleoanthropologists as suggesting husbandry. In the development of man, various cultures seemed to concentrate on ibex, horses, reindeer and so on. Could it be that ceratopsians and hadrosaurs were actually domestic animals like cows and sheep kept for food? If so, it is unmistakable evidence of intelligence.
Yes, but what does this have to do with UFOs?
Some of the "aliens" could actually be subterrestrial descendants of the anthroposaurs.
The minumum size to cause a mass extinction at that distance is 26 solar masses. Even if it had been 200 solar masses (that's how big the largest known star is), any dinosaur under 18 feet of rock at the time would have survived.
OK, what's my point?
The velociraptors were as smart as chimpanzees are today. It was only five million years from chimpanzees to humans.
The last few million years of the Cretaceous showed a marked reduction in diversity of dinosaur species: the earlier vigorous adaptive radiation of the hadrosaurs and the ceratopsians similarly gave way to a yielding of variety. For the last two million years of the Cretaceous, a single genus of each—- saurolophus and triceratops respectively—- dominated the landscape, although they did so in vast numbers.
No gradual environmental change is going to eliminate genetic variation in genus after genus of dinosaurs. That very variation will guarantee adaptation to the changes by natural selection before genetic variation has been significantly pruned. The motive power of evolution is expansion of diversity with environmental change. The dinosaurs' loss of variety is much more characteristic of the loss of variety in species we are seeing today—- by unnatural selection—- at the hand of man.
Caches of bones of a single species are regarded by paleoanthropologists as suggesting husbandry. In the development of man, various cultures seemed to concentrate on ibex, horses, reindeer and so on. Could it be that ceratopsians and hadrosaurs were actually domestic animals like cows and sheep kept for food? If so, it is unmistakable evidence of intelligence.
Yes, but what does this have to do with UFOs?
Some of the "aliens" could actually be subterrestrial descendants of the anthroposaurs.