Poisonous Plants Killed Off Dinosaurs

[DPS Ammonite]

Poisonous angiosperms might has caused the dinosaur extinctions because they could not taste the poisons in the plants. Warning, do not suffer the same fate; do not eat large amounts of spinach. 

 

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/224517/20180405/turns-out-dinosaurs-were-killed-off-by-flowers-then-the-asteroid-put-the-nail-in-the-coffin.htm

[David in Japan]

Interesting theory but the article is full of "mistakes".

When one can read that "Researchers also ran tests on the modern descendants of dinosaurs: bird and crocodiles." you can doubt on the article credibility or the study credibility.

[Kane]

A 145 lb person can eat up to 7 lbs of spinach per day and not reach toxicity levels for oxalic acid.  

[FossilDAWG]

The poisonous plant idea has been around for a long time, I remember reading a version of it 25-30 years ago.  It never made any sense to me.  First, it assumes dinosaurs were not capable of responding to natural selection, and so failed to evolve detoxification systems to metabolize and excrete toxins in their diet, or sensory systems to avoid toxic plants.  This makes no sense to me.  Secondly, it fails entirely to explain simultaneous mass extinctions in terrestrial and marine ecosystems.  How mosasaurs and ammonites could be exterminated by toxic mangos is a mystery to me.

 

Don

[doushantuo]

here

 

Winffney 1987 RevPP.pdf

(about 2,8 Mb and ,excuse the pun,"food for thought")

[siteseer]

On May 16, 2018 at 7:33 PM, FossilDAWG said:

The poisonous plant idea has been around for a long time, I remember reading a version of it 25-30 years ago.  It never made any sense to me.  First, it assumes dinosaurs were not capable of responding to natural selection, and so failed to evolve detoxification systems to metabolize and excrete toxins in their diet, or sensory systems to avoid toxic plants.  This makes no sense to me.  Secondly, it fails entirely to explain simultaneous mass extinctions in terrestrial and marine ecosystems.  How mosasaurs and ammonites could be exterminated by toxic mangos is a mystery to me.

 

Don

 

 

Hi Don,

 

I'm seeing this for the first time now and have always thought the same thing.  The "poisoned by plants" idea was debunked a long time ago for the reasons you note.  It was one of those ideas that people were thinking about but not thinking through before 1980.

 

Jess