Good size mammals may have thrived during the age of the dinosaurs - look to the birds!

Tonight something clicked as I walked in the summer night and heard the thousands of insects singing/chirping/matingcalling in the trees and bushes and lawns all around me. Most of them wouldn't do that, take up the calls and be so full of sound, in the full light of daytime - because of the birds. Birds would eat them. Gather them up and swallow them whole. Because birds, except for owls, all hunt during the day. And maybe dinosaurs, being ground birds, hunted in the day and rested at night too (except for the dreaded owlsaurus).

Where I live there are many night mammals. Coyotes, deer, possum, raccoons, fox, a bear or two, and others who hunt and walk at night. These can be considered large mammals compared to what we are told were the mammals alive during the age of the large dinosaurs - tiny shrew like creatures lucky to be alive amongst the giants. So maybe that's not true, maybe there were large animals alive during the dinosaur age, the ancestors of all the night hunting/walking mammals today. They just had to find places to tuck themselves away during the light hours - just like the night-thriving mammals do nowadays. Some of the critters way up the trees, others in burrows, some inside rotted trees, others in the high grass.

So seventh from the bottom line, I'm calling "not so fast, mister" on the idea that mammals were all very small during the dinosaur age. Shrew and whatnot. There were likely some pretty large ones around, all over the place in fact. Birds won't fly at night because they could hit something, and those that did never evolved into the dominant and plentiful form (except for the owl, which is probably a very interesting evolutionary story). But the birds had to retain some of their dinosaur instincts, and maybe those instincts include daytime activity and nighttime inactivity. The night belongs to the mammals! Then and now. And the insects, those really interesting and enjoyable to hear summer insects, calling to each other in all the trees, bushes, and lawns, everything colored with summer.

a reply to: alienjuggalo

That, kind sir, is one of the best responses I've ever gotten here. A simple gesture of "cool". A sincere thank you.

a reply to: Granite

That, unkind sir, is one of the meanest responses I've ever gotten here. A simple gesture of "jerk". A sincere lol (and a well deserved star).

Whoops, one of those double posts. If you get enough of those you can throw some wood between them and fence off a corral.

i have a feeling there were probably some mean a$$ insects back in the day.

You could be right. Something was around before mammoths and other megafuna, back when whales had legs.

a reply to: Aleister

Some reptiles, like pit vipers, have sensory organs that allow them to hunt in the dark. Even reptiles that do not have those organs hunt at night and in dark burrows, using their senses of taste and smell.
So....

And...

a reply to: Aleister

The Permian extinction brought about the dinosaur age. During the extinction event air quality was very poor mammalian like creatures bigger than a meerkat couldn't survive. The dinosaurs evolved from different branch and had a superior respiratory system which gave them an advantage coming out of that event so they became the dominant species at an accelerated rate while mammalian like creatures found shelter by becoming smaller.

Crocodiles are considered living fossils from the dinosaur age and they see pretty good at night it is said that many of the dinosaurs were less dependent on sight than other senses like smell or even sensing heat signatures so I am pretty sure that night was not as safe to wonder around as you think.

i think its very cool how dinos have evolved over the years.
when i was a kid dinos were cold blooded, kind of slow moving creatures.
now they are warm blooded, quick,smart, and have feathers.

a reply to: Aleister

I thought it was the mammals small size that allowed them to survive the extinction event (whatever that may be). I really enjoyed reading your description of a night walk in your area.

a reply to: Aleister

If there were larger mammals around during this period there should at least be some fossils of them somewhere. Alas none have been found, so until there are or until some other evidence is found, your idea is just speculation and nothing more than that.

originally posted by: Grimpachi
a reply to: Aleister

The Permian extinction brought about the dinosaur age. During the extinction event air quality was very poor mammalian like creatures bigger than a meerkat couldn't survive. The dinosaurs evolved from different branch and had a superior respiratory system which gave them an advantage coming out of that event so they became the dominant species at an accelerated rate while mammalian like creatures found shelter by becoming smaller.

Crocodiles are considered living fossils from the dinosaur age and they see pretty good at night it is said that many of the dinosaurs were less dependent on sight than other senses like smell or even sensing heat signatures so I am pretty sure that night was not as safe to wonder around as you think.

in an atempt to head off the "oooh superior respiratory system....why didnt we evolve a sup....." crowd, we've all heard it before.

Please take this not as a slight at you Grim', but i just know whats coming.

It wasnt a superior respiratory system, it was just better adapted to the environment at the time. (hope I wasnt to late)

a reply to: Grimpachi



Hey idmonster! Good to see you around!

a reply to: Aleister

There might have been some large mammals around during the late dinosaur era, but one of the reasons why mammals survived the dinosaur extinction was because they were small and could burrow to safety. I'm sure some large ones existed, but there isn't much evidence of them, and one would have to think of a survival advantage in a world dominated by large reptile/bird like animals. I'd think that smaller mammals had a survival advantage mostly because of their size, which gave them an ability to hide from the large predators. Their evolutionary path followed that and they ended up out surviving the dinosaurs as a result.