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Killer Bees Wiped Out Dinosaurs!
January 07, 2008 12:41 PM
Well, almost. There's a new book, written by the husband-wife team of George and Roberta Poinar, that says the last dinosaurs may have been killed off by biting insects -- not simply, as prevailing theory has had it, by a meteorite impact 65 million years ago.
The Poinars argue that the Cretaceous dinosaurs did not die off instantly, as one might expect if there had been a catastrophe such as global dust from an impact, so it's time to look for additional explanations.
Their favorite: that primitive mosquitoes, mites and ticks spread disease; and early bees promoted the spread of flowering plants, crowding out the flora on which plant-eating dinosaurs would have fed.
The book is called "What Bugged The Dinosaurs? Insects, Disease And Death In The Cretaceous" (Princeton University Press) and it's getting a fair amount of play in British and Australian media today; take a look at The Independent from London and The Sydney Morning Herald.
The Poinar name may be familiar--some of their past work, on insects preserved (with their DNA) in amber, was an inspiration for "Jurassic Park." George Poinar has an appointment at Oregon State University; Roberta is retired from teaching.
Daniel Cressey, writing on "The Great Beyond" blog at Nature.com, says, "There might be some merit to Poinar’s ideas." But he worries about some "fairly extravagant claims not tested by peer review."
He writes, "If dinosaurs couldn’t adapt to the changing conditions and the rise of insect/disease vectors why could other animals? Could biting insects even get through thick dinosaur skin? Why does no one mention peer-reviewed criticism of work including Poinar’s that any journalist could have picked up with a google search?"
Demise of the least fit? Since a lot of you have been weighing in on evolution over the weekend, this may be fresh fodder.
January 7, 2008 | Permalink | Share | User Comments (34)
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Ridiculous theory!!!!
Posted by: Truth | Jan 7, 2008 3:08:07 PM
Dinosaurs were hunted by alien predators! Didn't you see AVP? :)
Posted by: Gerald | Jan 7, 2008 3:26:36 PM
Dinosaurs died becuase it was their time to die.
Posted by: Greg | Jan 7, 2008 3:31:50 PM
I'm voting for Mickey Mouse.
Posted by: Joseph | Jan 7, 2008 3:40:23 PM
Its good to read about alternate theories because I believe the fossil records do not back up the extinction of the dinosaurs. Many of them were still kicking a long time after the meteorite. It was always an interesting discussion with the herpetologists I knew who payed attention to lizard fossils.
Posted by: KF | Jan 7, 2008 3:42:32 PM
Like most species, they probably died out for a number of reasons that all added up to population declines. This theory could have contributed along with the impact. It would be very rare for a species to go extinct due to just one cause.
Posted by: jock59801 | Jan 7, 2008 3:43:00 PM
If insects wipe out anything, it will be humankind.
Posted by: godseyesore | Jan 7, 2008 3:45:13 PM
Global warming killed them off. Oil companies, those dinosaur killing greedy ########!
Posted by: numbnut | Jan 7, 2008 3:53:09 PM
Dinosaurs died because they were immoral. It was their own fault. Stop playing the dinosaur/victim card.
Posted by: Red-stater | Jan 7, 2008 3:56:42 PM
Oh come on. Doesn't everybody know that the dinosaurs were killed off when the "Big Flood" hit and Noah couldn't fit them on the arc because they are too big and mean! Sheesh people.
Posted by: BigT | Jan 7, 2008 4:01:49 PM
Hello there! This story was great! Also very interesting. I might even go and by the book too! Keep stories like these comming! I love to hear about dinosaurs! Take Care. Bye.
Posted by: Becca Hartman | Jan 7, 2008 4:24:10 PM
Probably not, we all know that there are endangered and extinct animals. For all we know they were endangered, and there could be THOUSANDS of explinations for that.
[[they could have killed one another]]
who knows.
Posted by: Sara | Jan 7, 2008 4:25:42 PM
Yes, that's it - the dinos killed each other off. Interspecies gang warfare. Dinos invading each other's territory for resources or on false pretexts that the others had WMDs. Maybe bad health care and crooked insurance companies run by velociraptors.
Posted by: kentlee7 | Jan 7, 2008 4:51:35 PM
If that were the case there would be more evidence of the prevailing Cretaceous insects in the crust layer as the dinosaur found. Assuming mosquitoes were more or less the same biologic makeup as todays mosquitoes, then they would have been seeking warm-blooded creatures to feed upon (assuming they fed on blood). As yet, there is no proof that dinosaurs were warm-blooded. I would guess it would have to be a major grandscale on-slaught of mites,sqitters,and bees, oh my. I believe the other theory has more credence. Sorry.
Posted by: lvbkz | Jan 7, 2008 5:00:37 PM
And by the way, there is evidence dinosaurs were warm-blooded.
Posted by: sss | Jan 7, 2008 5:31:52 PM
According to the Bush report, they were killed by Al-Qaeda
Posted by: Icefairy | Jan 7, 2008 5:35:49 PM
It was probably due to global warming. According to Star Trek, there was a race of intelligent dinosaurs who eventually discovered warp speed before they were destroyed. I suspect they drove SUVs also; really big ones! That's why we have an oil shortage today.
Posted by: michael charlton | Jan 7, 2008 5:41:42 PM
Funny, what some people take as gospel truth (i.e., human-induced global warming and the THEORY of evolution) are still and all actually just theories, not law. They are subject to change and revision when more science and evidence are discovered. For years, evidence seemed to support the theory that dinosaurs were killed off by a massive meteorite. Now this...Bottom Line? Keep the mind open. P.S. And for the record I do subscribe to the theory of evolution.
Posted by: Jerryemt2001 | Jan 7, 2008 6:57:02 PM
I can't believe this!! Somthing that we now swat killed the dinosaures
Posted by: akaz | Jan 7, 2008 7:05:36 PM
Perhaps the human race itself could use some mosquitoe-based herd thinning. I hear malaria can give quit a buzz. Perhaps dinosaur tastes really good with A-1 sauce, and we could blame Arbies. But seriously, I think they starved to death because they stopped getting their welfare checks, and they hadn't evolved far enough to understand cause & effect (work & eating). Or it could have been the lack of faith-based soup kitchens. After the terrorist mammalian rodent-like creatures killed all of the dino politicians, no one was around to allocate funds for disaster relief.
I think this article is intended to just get a few folks bantering, it's not a big story and..well..I have better things to do than worry about what dinosaurs died of - or how some dude is trying to get his name in lights. Locally (in AZ) there's a "professor" that was pushing to introduce elephants back into the desert since mammoths lived here long ago (but before it was a desert). Well, he got his name in lights, and then laughed out of town by his peers.
Posted by: Ken | Jan 7, 2008 9:45:18 PM
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