Birds caused insects to shrink, says new study

Adam Khor

I don´t know, it doesn´t convince me, but whatever, its on the news:

http://www.sci-news.com/paleontology/article00379.html

This is awesome tho:

Rubecula

I always believed insect sizes were due to oxygen percentages in the atmosphere. But pressure from birds may have had an effect I suppose. Not something I have ever thought about.

Adam Khor

Rubecula wrote: »

I always believed insect sizes were due to oxygen percentages in the atmosphere. But pressure from birds may have had an effect I suppose. Not something I have ever thought about.

But what about pterosaurs? Don´t you think they should have had an effect on insects too before birds did? I mean, it's not like the earliest birds were needle-tailed swifts...

Galvasean

I'm guessing that 150MYA when the oxygen levels went up pterosaurs and birds were already in the ecological niches that giant insects would have 'wanted' to fill. In other words there was simply no ecological room for giant insects as the skies, trees etc. were already full.