[Taxacom] Evolutionary "winning" taxa

[Kenneth Kinman]

 Dear All, 
        After reading an abstract for a paper appearing
in the February 2009 issue of American Naturalist ("Lower Extinction
Risk in Sleep and Hide Mammals"), I started reading some press releases
and statements by some of the authors. I was rather surprised and
disappointed by statements like:  Despite these results, sleepers and
hiders shouldn't be viewed as evolutionary "winners", the authors say.    
        I haven't read the full article, but I certainly hope that they
didn't say that in the article.  In the long run, sleepers and hiders do
tend to be evolutionary winners, and it was a major factor in
determining which land vertebrates survived the end-Cretaceous
extinction event.  As I have said in the past, it's not surprising frogs
made it through that extinction since various species can go underground
and enter extreme hibernation states for long periods.  Or
proto-tinamous surviving in their burrows and then giving rise to all
the living ratites.  The meek did inherit the Earth at the end of the
Cretaceous.
         ------Ken Kinman                 
                                                       
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090128160935.htm