Ostriches gave up flying when dinosaurs died out

Telegraph ^ | 1/23/10

[Verginius Rufus]

Some people would say that birds are dinosaurs. 65 million years ago, the non-avian dinosaurs became extinct, but the birds survived.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Little Bill. Will ping when I’m back home, although for some reason I feel like burying my head in the sand.

[Touch Not the Cat]

The ones that were flying the highest fell the farthest.

[Touch Not the Cat]

Now, there’s something you don’t see everyday!

[Daffynition]

Darn tootin' ;)

[SunkenCiv]

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[null and void]

If a big asteroid hit the earth sending firestorms and destruction of vegetation around the globe, what happened to the birds?

Pretty much NOTHING larger than a house cat survived.

Of the critters that did survive all are of species that have members who lived in burrows, estivated in mud, or didn't need to come to the surface to breathe.

Consistant with a quick global broil. Think Baked Alaska...

[count-your-change]

Then where did the birds today come from?

[wildbill]

Conversation between two ancient ostriches:

Herb: Fred, I really like the new wingless look. Kinda like an wngless asperytix on steroids. And look at those legs. You’re really evolving, Dude.

Fred: Yeah, you better get with the long-legs program, buddy, I hear they got something called cheetahs coming on line.

[null and void]

google

Burrowing owl
Fork-tailed Storm-Petrel
White-browed Tits
Common Kingfishers
Puffins
Shearwaters
Crab Plover
Miners
Leaftossers
Sand Martins
Burrowing Parakeet
Buffbirds,
D'Arnaud's Buff-breasted Paradise-kingfishers


Burrow entrances in European Bee-eater colony

Sand Martin at the entrance of its burrow nest

Then re-read my post, smaller than a house cat, lives in a burrow.

[wendy1946]

If ancestors of ostriches or emus ever did fly, then either gravity was less or the birds were smaller. The limit for flying creatures in our world is around 30 - 40 lbs.

[MaxMax]

I always thought the earth was smaller which means lower gravity and bigger animals.
Astronauts grow taller in space.

[count-your-change]

Guess they lived on charcoal when they finally came out of their burrows. Or dino bubbacue. Right.

[null and void]

*sigh* Worms live in burrows, fish did't need to surface through a scalding hot layer to breathe. And as you say carrion eaters had one hell of a barbecue to tide them over until the rat population exploded.

It was a very rough time. Nothing great survived, and only a small fraction of the small did, but how many ship escaping rats does it take to ultimately overrun an island?

Does a conflagration kill all the moles? Does it kill all the tubers and seeds?

And Wendy? The ostrich ancestors didn't weigh 30 or 40 lbs, they also flew. Being small swift and airborne is only important when you'll be eaten by larger predators.

As soon as there weren't any larger predators flying became less important, a critter could stay on the ground and get a meal without becoming a meal.

In a world of little critters, a slightly bigger critter has better odds of attracting the ladies getting the lions's share of the food, and leaving descendants.

All the ecological niches filled by large dinos are empty. Nature abhors a vacuum.

[count-your-change]

A nice story for the History channel but the reality? It doesn't fit. Where is the evidence for a massive die off of birds? or insects? Even dino diarrhea has been proposed along with every other imaginable cause, poison gas, volcanoes, cosmic rays, climate change. Just so.

[Thumper1960]

Soooo, whatever killed the dinosaurs DIDN’T kill emus and ostriches?

Nope.

The Emu's and Ostriches merely buried their heads in the sand until the big, bad asteroid packed up and went back to Planet X.

[Ciexyz]

big bird bump.

[gleeaikin]

My theory is that birds were protected from the suns rays by their feathers when the monster meteor destroyed the ozone layer. Ditto the nocturnal mammals, shade loving and estivating small lizards and amphibeans, and the Crocodilians resting in caves cut into embankments.

[wolfcreek]

What about the giant storms and nuclear winter scenerio?

They had to eat.

[gleeaikin]

There probably would have been a few that survived in areas far from the boloid impact where conditions might not have been or become too severe. However, I think that loss of the ozone layer may have been worldwide.