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A comment on Modern Crocodiles Are Evolving at a Rapid Rate. Parent comment

Re:Modern Crocodiles Are Evolving at a Rapid Rate by agarsev on Tuesday October 12, 2021 @06:52AM (#28838223)
What happened at the K-Pg limit with dinosaurs and crocodiles is similar, both went from being very wide to a handful of species remaining. The difference is what happened afterwards, when the few (single?) species of dinosaurs that remained diversified into what we now call birds.

The interesting thing from the article is that crocodiles are still evolving rapidly, but not diversifying! they seem to be successful in their narrow and specialist niche.

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Re:Modern Crocodiles Are Evolving at a Rapid Rate by Hayarotle on Tuesday October 12, 2021 @12:31PM (#28841701)
I wonder how close crocodilians were to being extinct after the K-Pg limit. If they did, they would be another non-dinosaur archosaurian group only known from fossils, like pterosaurs. Someone from such timeline would probably be delighted to see alive, as seeing one would be the as amazing for them as seeing a pterosaur or triceratops would be for us.

They're the last living non-avian archosaurs. We sure take crocodilians for granted.

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Re:Modern Crocodiles Are Evolving at a Rapid Rate by rozab on Tuesday October 12, 2021 @01:57PM (#28842858)
That sort of aquatic ambush predator niche has always been very successful, so I think we'd end up with a similar animal with a similar body plan that would fill the niche; it's evolved many times before.

https://bmcecolevol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-...

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