Re: insects at K/T boundary

[Markus Bertling <bertlin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Heinz, Norm and all the (hitherto) anonymous rest:
Apart from the "grey" abstract  
> Labandiera, C. C., 1992. Diets, diversity, and disparity: Determining the
> effect of the terminal Cretaceous extinction on insect evolution. 5th
> NAPC, Abstr., Spec. Publ. Pal. Soc., 6, 174.
which obviously did not lead to a longer publication, there is "good"
reference available as well:
Whalley, P. (1987): Insects and Cretaceous mass extinction.- Nature, 327:
562. As you can see, this is a very short contribution as well but it
cites a few more papers (as usual in Nature, no titles provided).
Paul Whalley's conclusion is exactly the same as Labandiera's:
"Lack of evolutionary change in the insects across the K/T boundary argues
against disrupt or catastrophic changes".
But an asteroid impact as the killer from above is FAR more attractive, of
course, especially to the public and those who perpetuate this view
despite all palaeontological evidence raised against it...    ;-)
> There are still a lot of questions left. 
I agree, for instance "why didn't the impact harm other reptiles such as 
crocodiles and snakes?". They also show continuous evolution across the
boundary. But perhaps I am bringing coals to Newcastle with this
audience...

Markus
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                          Markus Bertling
             Assistant Professor (Invertebrate Palaeozoology)
            Geologisch-Palaeontologisches Institut und Museum
                          Corrensstr. 24
                          48149 Muenster
                             Germany
e-mail: bertlin@uni-muenster.de         fax: ..49 - 251 - 83 339 68
                                      phone: ..49 - 251 - 83 339 73 
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