An Index To Fanboy/Hater Claims

[creature386]

When you have a passion, it is best to turn it into something productive. A lot of us are or used to be very obsessed with fanboyism (just look at how long Carnivora's "Most Overrated and Underrated Animals" thread became).
Normally, fanboys are ignored by the more scientifically-minded members. However, much like the desire to prove a creationist wrong can turn one into an expert on evolutionary biology, the desire to prove a fanboy wrong can do something similar.

We already have two similar threads on this forum.
theworldofanimals.proboards.com/thread/1154/index-bandit-claims-publications
theworldofanimals.proboards.com/thread/1151/index-creationist-claims-animals-version

A "fanboy" is in the context of the AVA community someone who is abnormally invested in a certain animal and makes unreasonable arguments in favor of it. These arguments often rely on hypotheses which are not supported by the vast majority of the scientific community. A Tyrannosaurus fanboy might claim a maximum length of 16 m, despite the fact that such estimates have never been taken seriously by the scientific community. Or a Spinosaurus fanboy might still claim that their favorite animal regularly reached lengths of 18 m, even though such estimates are outdated. Similarly, fanboys tend to downgrade animals perceived as rivals of their darlings (for tigers, this would be bears or lions; for Tyrannosaurus, this would be Giganotosaurus or Spinosaurus). Such downgrading is also known as "hating". Claims by "haters" are also welcome here. For the purposes of this thread, "fanboy" is an unisex term.

Refute claims in the following format:

1. Summary of the claim or direct quote (with source).

2. Reasons why the claim is wrong (can be a bullet list or a text).

3. Sources for your own claims.

Remember to use paragraph breaks in order to keep these sections separate. Also, use paragraph breaks and subheadings in case you refute several claims in a single post.

While I have no direct example, the creationist thread shows how a refutation might look:

There is NO recorded history prior to 4,000 B.C., no writings, no carved stones, no battles, no wars, no countries, no nothing! It's as if mankind just suddenly began

www.jesus-is-savior.com/Evolution%20Hoax/4000.htm

1. This is a non sequitur. The start of recorded history coincides with the invention of writing, it was of course impossible to record history prior to that. Saying that mankind (let alone the world!) cannot have existed before that is ludicrous.

2. It is not surprising that it took so long until there was finally writing. Humans needed to become settlers (which was not obvious from the beginning) and then had to developed societies complex enough for making the invention of writing useful and sensible. Moreover, it is not believed by evolutionists that humanity and Earth are even nearly equally old.

3. Stewart completely ignores that human history can be traced back longer than 6,000 years ago. The Neolithic Revolution is older than 6,000 years and left traces of domestication and settlements.[1]

4. There is something called proto-history which includes proto-writings. They are usually older than 6,000 years. Jiahu symbols are, for instance, over 8,000 years old.[2]

5. Even if it turned out that humanity was only a few thousand years old, this would not disprove evolution.

[1] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Revolution
[2] news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2956925.stm

Additional guidelines:
1. Keep debates in this thread to a minimum. This thread is by its nature polarizing, but it is not the place for arguing which animal is better than which. If a member violates the guidelines or has a post riddled with errors, you can point that out, but please no debate beyond that.
2. Keep original research to a minimum. Ideally, you should refute people that disagree with the scientific consensus, not with your personal pet theories. To ask yourself if you are presenting original research or not, ask yourself if you are making a controversial claim. If yes, ask if you can find a source for it. If yes, add it to your reference section. If not, either get rid of it or be prepared to argue at length for it. In general, controversial statements must either be sourced or defended in sufficient detail so that people can understand your train of thought.
3. Avoid plagiarism. Quotes and images must be sourced. Summaries of opinions don't need to identify the author of the opinion.
4. Avoid flame-bait. Unlike "creationist", "fanboy" is a heavy slur in AVA circles and no-one wants to call themselves that way. If you are quoting someone you don't want to have beef with and you want to put their name in a fanboy-thread, ask yourself if you must quote them or if you can just summarize their opinion.
5. If possible, adhere to standards of academic writing and argumentation.

Here is an index:
Fanboys:

• Mammalia (general)
  • The dominance of mammals in the Cenozoic shows general supremacy over reptiles.

• Tyrannosaurus
  • UCMP 137538, a 13 cm long pedal phalanx IV-2, indicates a 14-16 m Tyrannosaurus.

Haters:

• Tyrannosaurus
  • Tyrannosaurus was ill-adapted for macrophagy.

• Dinosaurs (herbivorous)
  • Ornithopods and sauropods, did not possess any weapon-like appendages.

[dinosauria101]

The time has finally come! At long last!

There are many types of fanboys I take serious issue with, but some of the worst hands down have got to be Tyrannosaurus fanboys, both “awesomebro” and scientific. They often claim enough C-R-A-P to make my toilet jealous.

Let us begin with the wide and wonderful world of animal vs animal, where these fanatics tend to be most prevalent. To start, we shall examine scientific fanatics of Tyrannosaurus; those who write big long fancy posts and twist the meaning of words in order to make their hogwash look believable. They pass off rather large Tyrannosaurus (CM 9380, BHI 3033/Stan) as average

We know a lot about Rex, and as far as I am aware the average specimen seems to be around Stan's size (37-39 feet depending on your methods). Assuming the CM 930 or BHI 3033 (7500ish kg) represent the average T. rex and MUCPv-Ch1 represents an average Giganotosaurus (6800ish kg), even if the southern giant is longer overall, it would take a true giant like MUCPv-95's liberal estimate to outweigh the Tyrannosaur.

Often focus on Sue and Sue sized specimens to match with more or less everything (this is a very common size comparison they post_,

and ignore specimens such as Black Beauty, Wy-rex, B-rex, Bucky, LL 12823, BHI 6232, 6242, and 6233, and USNM 6183. They also consider it to go full on T rex hater mode to use a specimen ~11.2 meters and ~6.3 tonnes as an average adult but it’s actually quite a good representation of one.

nothing would change unless we go on full T.rex hater mode and use a the smallest confirmed adult specimen (~11.2 meters, 6.3 tonnes)

They also use the fallacy of crushing>slicing and cite jaw power as an advantage – it is not an advantage unless both animals have the same jaw mechanism, which isn’t the case for many of Rexy’s most common opponents. They also make statements such as ‘Tyrannosaurus might be the most overrated dinosaur ever but it almost deserves its reputation”.

Tyrannosaurus might be the most overrated dinosaur ever but it almost deserves its reputation. The more we find out about it the more impressive it becomes.

Tyrannosaurus, unlike virtually every other dinosaur, has been consistently up sized, it has the most powerful jaws, fossil pathologies have found that it was an incredibly durable animal, it was the fastest of the large theropods (admittedly running speed is not an important factor in a fight) and recently it was also found to be far more agile than other similar sized theropods.

It's honestly getting ridiculous how badass it was, big yet fast, tyrannosaurus was the try hard bodybuilder of theropods. The only advantage the gigantosaurus has is its larger gape. This isn't to say this would be a one-sided slaughter, but I think tyrannosaruus take this the vast majority of times while sustaining very heavy injuries.

Uh, no. Not even CLOSE. Mind you, this ‘reputation’ includes, among loads and loads of other heresy, soloing Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum head on, and it should be blatantly obvious a 4-8 tonne theropod not particularly specialized for macrophagy is NOT soloing a 75 tonne sauropod even by ambush. Not only that, Tyrannosaurus fanatics have strong tendencies to downplay the other animal in the fight. Take, for instance, the classic Tyrannosaurus vs Giganotosaurus debate. If you ask any Tyrannosaurus fanatic, it’s as if MUCPv-95 suddenly disappeared from existence and it’s not considered whatsoever. While it could very well be the same size as the holotype, it could also be anywhere from 2.2 to 6.5% bigger, and even 8 plus percent bigger with a proportionately smaller head and jaw than the holotype. They also try to continually compare, say, FMNH PR 2081 vs MUCPv-Ch1 as stated previously. By that exact same logic, we could also do USNM 6183 vs MUCPv-95, but those kinds of comparisons are not something Tyrannosaurus fanatics accept, fallaciously brushing those specimens off as babies (but they are adults) and often branding whoever suggested it a T rex hater. .

[creature386]

Are you planning to edit this later so that it fits the OP Guidelines?

[dinosauria101]

Yep. I'll edit in quote blocks to reflect what the fanboys said.

[Infinity Blade]

a 4-8 tonne theropod not particularly specialized for macrophagy

Because I've seen this claim hijacked by a fanboy years ago, why don't I make the second contribution to this thread by debunking it?

1.) Below is the definition of 'macrophagous':

"(zoology) That feeds on relatively large particles or prey."[1]

Hence 'macrophagy' can be defined as the practice of feeding on relatively large particles or prey. It does NOT necessarily mean predation on animals larger than the predator. I trust I do not need to explain how Tyrannosaurus rex fed upon relatively large particles/prey.

2.) Even if we were speaking in the context of Tyrannosaurus rex preying upon animals larger than itself, this statement is simply unfounded. As everyone on this website knows, Tyrannosaurus rex possessed large serrated* teeth (the largest T. rex tooth crown was 18 cm long[2]), tremendous bite forces in the ~35-63 kN range (for anterior and posterior jaw positions, respectively)[3], a maximum jaw gape of up to 80^o[4], and an extremely strong skull[5]. These adaptations - raptorial teeth, high bite forces, large gapes, and strong powerfully built crania - are seen as specializations for large prey, and are exhibited in modern predators such as big cats, hyenas, some canids, and orcas, among others. In fact, these predators have been known to seriously injure or kill prey items larger than themselves with such jaws. This begs the question: what would magically turn these same adaptations in Tyrannosaurus rex as somehow not being particularly well suited for taking prey larger than itself? The cranial and dental specializations seen in Tyrannosaurus rex are not part of a trade off that prevented it from being able to prey upon fauna larger than itself. They are better seen as a different solution (relative to the adaptations exhibited in some other theropods) to this same problem.

The only thing that would have forced Tyrannosaurus and co. to predominately prey upon megaherbivores equal to or smaller than them in body mass, in contrast to carnosaurs sometimes preying upon sauropods larger than themselves, is the simple fact that the megaherbivores contemporaneous with tyrannosaurids just tended to not be much larger than it. And even then they sometimes coexisted with large sauropods or extremely large hadrosaurids[6].

Of course, this isn't to say I believe Tyrannosaurus impusively attacked adult sauropods many times larger than itself alone (not that I think even the giant carnosaurs did so either), but - admittedly going into speculative territory here - I do believe that targeting a juvenile sauropod maybe a few times larger than itself, or targeting adults in groups (assuming the species practiced such behavior), is within reason.

*And before anyone tells me how T. rex serrated carinae cut like a "dull smooth blade"[7], I'm well aware. But it should stand to reason that having any serrations at all is better than having none.

References:

[1] en.wiktionary.org/wiki/macrophagous
[2] Gignac, P.M.; Erickson, E.M. (2017). The Biomechanics Behind Extreme Osteophagy in Tyrannosaurus rex. Scientific Reports volume 7, Article number: 2012 (2017)
[3] Cost, I. N., Middleton, K. M., Sellers, K. C., Echols, M. S., Witmer, L. M., Davis, J. L., & Holliday, C. M. (2019). Palatal biomechanics and its significance for cranial kinesis in Tyrannosaurus rex. The Anatomical Record. doi:10.1002/ar.24219 
[4] Lautenschlager, S. (2015). Estimating cranial musculoskeletal constraints in theropod dinosaurs. Royal Society Open Science 2.11 (2015): 150495.
[5] Snively, E.; Henderson, D.M.; Phillips, D.S. (2006). Fused and vaulted nasals of tyrannosaurid dinosaurs: Implications for cranial strength and feeding mechanics. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 51.3 (2006).
[6] Snively, E.M.; O'Brien, H.; Henderson, D.M.; Mallison, H.; Surring, L.A.; Burns, M.E.; Holtz, Jr.; T.R.; Russell, A.P.; Witmer, L.M.; Currie, P.J.; Hartman, S.A.; Cotton, J.R. (2019). Lower rotational inertia and larger leg muscles indicate more rapid turns in tyrannosaurids than in other large theropods. PeerJ 7 (2019): e6432.
[7] Abler, W.L. (1992). The Serrated Teeth of Tyrannosaurid Dinosaurs, and Biting Structures in Other Animals. Paleobiology 18.2 (1992): 161-183.

[dinosauria101]

Yes, I already knew that T rex has serrated teeth - it's not a BAD weapon for very large animals, my only point was that T rex didn't evolve to solo 75 tonne sauropods on a regular basis. Maybe I should have said that instead.

[Infinity Blade]

It's not even just the serrations on the teeth. The point of my post was that T. rex has more or less the same set of adaptations in its jaws that we see in many other predators today that kill animals larger than themselves.

[dinosauria101]

True; the only difference between Rex and a pure slicer would be the gape/effectiveness of the jaws at a large gape. Other than that, all somewhat similar.

Anyhow, back on topic, I'm gonna link this. Pre-explained and pre-refuted, but it's pretty much Rexy's awesomebros in a nutshell:
www.deviantart.com/spinoinwonderland/art/Tyrannosaurus-rex-395510654?comment=1%3A395510654%3A4251097424

[Verdugo]

Dec 16, 2019 20:36:21 GMT 5 dinosauria101 said:

my only point was that T rex didn't evolve to solo 75 tonne sauropods on a regular basis

Which is not the same as 'not well-adapted for macrophagy'. Saying T-rex is not well-adapted for macrophagy is pretty silly to be frank. Infinity did not even take into account the fact that T-rex has bulldog neck muscles that are adapted for pulling and shaking which would help the Rex to further accentuate the damage it could cause by just its bite. This is also what we see in modern Carnivores like Hyenas and Grizzly bears that also employ the Bite-Pull-Shake technique to cause more damages on large preys (i have made this point before on your own thread but you're clearly ignoring it [1])

It's not like your Carnosaur are adapted to prey on Sauropods 10x their size either (if you think i am wrong, please provide evidences that definitely prove Carnosaurs are more adapted for macrophagy than T-rex is). Modern macrophagous Carnivores rarely ever take on prey that much larger to themselves (unless they're pack hunters, which we don't have solid evidence of for any large macrophagous Theropods) and for good reasons. Hunting a prey too large poses great risks to the Carnivore and since they cannot consume the entirety of their preys, it's likely that other Carnivores will come and try to take your food.

[dinosauria101]

I get it, I get it. "Not particularly specialized for macrophagy' may not have been the best word choice (and no, I don't think carnosaurs can solo things 10 times larger than them; very few if any animals can).
 
From now on, I'll replace it with "(less than 1/12th the size of its foe)" or something like that.

[creature386]

Alright, thanks for your edited post dinosauria. Like I expected, it violates my guidelines in quite a few ways.
That's also my fault because they weren't clear to begin with. I now edited my OP accordingly. However, it is actually a good thing that it happened that way. Part of the reason I made this thread was so that I could train you in scientific/academic reasoning and argumentation using a topic you like.

Let's dissect your post.

1. Keep claims and refutations separate
This is unfortunately a guideline I've made clear from the start.

Dec 14, 2019 19:28:16 GMT 5 dinosauria101 said:

those who write big long fancy posts and twist the meaning of words in order to make their hogwash look believable. They pass off rather large Tyrannosaurus (CM 9380, BHI 3033/Stan) as average

We know a lot about Rex, and as far as I am aware the average specimen seems to be around Stan's size (37-39 feet depending on your methods). Assuming the CM 930 or BHI 3033 (7500ish kg) represent the average T. rex and MUCPv-Ch1 represents an average Giganotosaurus (6800ish kg), even if the southern giant is longer overall, it would take a true giant like MUCPv-95's liberal estimate to outweigh the Tyrannosaur.

Often focus on Sue and Sue sized specimens to match with more or less everything (this is a very common size comparison they post_,

and ignore specimens such as Black Beauty, Wy-rex, B-rex, Bucky, LL 12823, BHI 6232, 6242, and 6233, and USNM 6183. They also consider it to go full on T rex hater mode to use a specimen ~11.2 meters and ~6.3 tonnes as an average adult but it’s actually quite a good representation of one.

nothing would change unless we go on full T.rex hater mode and use a the smallest confirmed adult specimen (~11.2 meters, 6.3 tonnes)

The red part is presentation of the claim and the green part is half-a-sentence of refutation. The refutation is sandwiched behind presentations of the claim, after which another fragment of the refutation comes with yet another presentation of the claim. That's not the way it was intended.
I intended separating the claim from the refutation for better legibility.
Look at Infinity Blade's post to see how that should look like. I was planning to post an example myself, but Infinity Blade did it better than I could.
Moreover, I added an additional guideline against posting quotes or images without author attribution. You might want to look at it.
I would have rewritten the section like this:

Claim: The average adult Tyrannosaurus weighed about 7.5 tons, as represented by specimens like CM 930 or BHI 3033/Stan. Any lesser claims (such as an average size of 6.3 tons) are pure bias.

Refutation: 6.3 tons is actually a perfectly reasonable average size. Using specimens like CM 930 or BHI 3033 as representatives of an adult Tyrannosaurus blatantly ignores smaller specimens such as Black Beauty, Wy-rex, B-rex, Bucky, LL 12823, BHI 6232, 6242, and 6233, and USNM 6183.

2. Minimize original research.
Another problem with dinosauria's post is the complete lack of any sources not just for quotes and images, but also for information.
Not every claim needs to be sourced, there are claims no-one questions. However, if a controversial claim is presented as a fact without reasoning or a source, it won't convince anyone. This thread was not intended to refute people who disagree with your pet hypothesis.

They also consider it to go full on T rex hater mode to use a specimen ~11.2 meters and ~6.3 tonnes as an average adult

Says who and according to what dataset?

They also use the fallacy of crushing>slicing and cite jaw power as an advantage – it is not an advantage unless both animals have the same jaw mechanism, which isn’t the case for many of Rexy’s most common opponents.

Again, who says that and why?
What's even worse is that the claim is not really refuted. The refutation is basically that different animals have different jaw mechanisms while the claim includes that some jaw mechanisms are inherently better than one. There's also two claims turned into one which only adds to the confusion.

3. Avoid vagueness.
I've added a guideline about how members here should adhere to academic writing/argumentation standards as closely as possible.
The essentials of academic writing are three Cs. Concision, clarity and coherence.

They also make statements such as ‘Tyrannosaurus might be the most overrated dinosaur ever but it almost deserves its reputation”.

Tyrannosaurus might be the most overrated dinosaur ever but it almost deserves its reputation. The more we find out about it the more impressive it becomes.

Tyrannosaurus, unlike virtually every other dinosaur, has been consistently up sized, it has the most powerful jaws, fossil pathologies have found that it was an incredibly durable animal, it was the fastest of the large theropods (admittedly running speed is not an important factor in a fight) and recently it was also found to be far more agile than other similar sized theropods.

It's honestly getting ridiculous how badass it was, big yet fast, tyrannosaurus was the try hard bodybuilder of theropods. The only advantage the gigantosaurus has is its larger gape. This isn't to say this would be a one-sided slaughter, but I think tyrannosaruus take this the vast majority of times while sustaining very heavy injuries.

Uh, no. Not even CLOSE. Mind you, this ‘reputation’ includes, among loads and loads of other heresy, soloing Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum head on, and it should be blatantly obvious a 4-8 tonne theropod not particularly specialized for macrophagy is NOT soloing a 75 tonne sauropod even by ambush. Not only that, Tyrannosaurus fanatics have strong tendencies to downplay the other animal in the fight. Take, for instance, the classic Tyrannosaurus vs Giganotosaurus debate. If you ask any Tyrannosaurus fanatic, it’s as if MUCPv-95 suddenly disappeared from existence and it’s not considered whatsoever. While it could very well be the same size as the holotype, it could also be anywhere from 2.2 to 6.5% bigger, and even 8 plus percent bigger with a proportionately smaller head and jaw than the holotype. They also try to continually compare, say, FMNH PR 2081 vs MUCPv-Ch1 as stated previously. By that exact same logic, we could also do USNM 6183 vs MUCPv-95, but those kinds of comparisons are not something Tyrannosaurus fanatics accept, fallaciously brushing those specimens off as babies (but they are adults) and often branding whoever suggested it a T rex hater. .

This is neither clear nor concise nor coherent.
"Reputation" in whose eyes?
The tangent about Giganotosaurus' size also adds nothing to the refutation.

[Infinity Blade]

I hope this is good. If anyone feels there is something wrong, feel free to let me know.

“There is a reason the land is now ruled by mammals.”
theworldofanimals.proboards.com/post/13908

“The fact remains, reptiles live today and they are not rulers of any terrain outside of the shallows and even then they are bullied by hippos.
I understand evolution has a lot to do with the atmospheric conditions. Hence why crocs where able to live for so long. While the ice age happened or meteorites struck, the water based reptiles where able to retreat to the sea when the land was uninhabitable, they could slow their metabolism down and not have to eat for long periods of time. But, if reptiles could dominant today they would, But they cannot so they don’t.”
theworldofanimals.proboards.com/post/13922



1.) The only reason why Earth is now dominated by mammals is the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event. Mammals needed the K-Pg event to crack the stranglehold reptiles had on the Earth’s niches for the ~135 million years leading up to it. Only then could they diversify into all the forms we have now and have had throughout the Cenozoic. What this tells us is that you cannot emphasize evolution having a lot to do with Earth’s conditions and prior precedents enough. Sure, reptiles don’t dominate Earth’s niches in the way that mammals do, and haven't done so for 66 million years; mammals were adaptable enough to take up those niches and hold onto them. But once upon a time, for ~135 million years at that, the reverse was true; mammals didn’t - and evidently couldn’t - dominate the Jurassic and Cretaceous world because a diverse aggregation of reptiles already did so. If you're using present day mammalian dominance as an argument that mammals are somehow "superior", it doesn't work.

2.) As far as I’m aware, birds still take up the majority of volant niches today, the evolution of bats notwithstanding. Arguably, they dominate the skies.

3.) Mammals undoubtedly produced the largest species throughout the Cenozoic, and continue to do so. They also undoubtedly have more large-bodied species today than do reptiles. You could say that they dominate in that regard. But one may also want to consider species diversity as a measure of “dominance”. After all, it stands to reason that if a clade experiences immense radiation (measured by the number of species) and is pretty much everywhere on the globe, then they must be doing very well (and well, if there are X species belonging to clade A, that’s X niches that clade B isn’t exploiting).

How many extant mammal species are there? There’s the often cited figure of 5,450 species (Wikipedia cites this figure), but a recent study in 2018 actually documents 6,399 extant species, with 96 recently extinct species[1].

How many extant bird species (read: dinosaurs (read: reptiles)) are there? There’s the often cited figure of ~10,000 species; lo and behold, the 2019 eBird Taxonomy database lists 10,721 species of bird[2]. But a 2016 study shows that avian diversity is significantly underestimated due to a taxonomic tradition not found in most other taxonomic groups. The study estimates 18,043 bird species worldwide[3].

How many extant non-avian reptile species are there? According to the Reptile Database, there are, as of August 12, 2019, 11,050 non-avian reptile species alive in the world today[4]. This actually surpasses the often-cited ~10,000 species figure for birds.

Adding up the 2016 estimate of avian diversity and the amount of non-avian reptile species documented as of August 2019 gives us a total of 29,093 extant reptiles. That is approximately 4.5 times as many mammals alive today. Even if I use the more conservative figure of 10,721 extant bird species, this would still give us a total of 21,771 species of reptile, making modern sauropsids >3 times more speciose than modern mammals. That’s a lot of niches reptiles didn’t let mammals have.

4.) This isn’t in response to any particular thing in the quotes above, but just to further dispel any notions of mammalian chauvinism: the fact that there were/are large bodied and/or highly specialized reptiles throughout the whole duration of the Cenozoic at all is much more than you can say for mammaliaforms during the Mesozoic. There were no large predatory semiaquatic mammals that preyed upon large adult land reptiles (as per crocodilians) or large semiaquatic herbivores (like Stupendemys). There were no large bodied terrestrial mammalian herbivores, carnivores, or omnivores during the Mesozoic (as per all the terrestrial predatory pseudosuchians, large flightless birds, large varanids, large constrictors, and large terrestrial testudines that existed throughout the Cenozoic). There is no evidence of any Mesozoic mammals dedicated to a marine lifestyle (as per sea turtles, palaeophids, and aquatic birds like penguins, great auks, etc.). And there was certainly no tremendous diversity of volant Mesozoic mammals (as per, well, literally every Cenozoic flying bird ever).

The only time in the Mesozoic where synapsids and sauropsids really were significantly co-dominant was the Triassic. And not only were said synapsids neither mammals themselves nor ancestral to them (so the relevance of this point is debatable), but even this co-dominance was limited to terrestrial realms (I have seen no evidence that any mammaliaforms were taking up aquatic/marine or volant niches, whereas the earliest pterosaurs, ichthyosaurs, and sauropterygians trace their roots back to the Triassic). This means that even back when there were still some synapsids left over from the Permian-Triassic extinction event, reptiles still had a tighter grip on Earth’s niches than mammals ever did during the Cenozoic. That grip only grew tighter after the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event.

Let me be clear: this is not at all meant to argue for supposed reptilian superiority; no one should be arguing such from my post (after all, reptiles themselves needed the T-J event to kill off the rest of the large synapsids they were coexisting with in order to fully dominate terrestrial realms). The point I'm making, however, is that if mammals were a lot more lenient towards reptile diversification throughout the Cenozoic than reptiles were towards mammal diversification throughout the Mesozoic, there's not a whole lot of a "mammals are evolutionarily superior" narrative to speak of.

References:

[1] Burgin, C.J.; Colella, J.P.; Kahn, P.L.; Upham, N.S. (2018). How many species of mammal are there?. Journal of Mammalogy 99.1 (2018): 1-14.
[2] ebird.org/news/2019-ebird-taxonomy-update
[3] Barrowclough, G.F.; Cracraft, J; Klicka, J.; Zink, R.M. (2016). How Many Kinds of Birds Are There and Why Does It Matter?. PLoS One 11.11 (2016): e0166307.
[4] www.reptile-database.org/db-info/news.html

[dinosauria101]

@creature

Yeah, I may have misunderstood the OP. There is a LOT of sources and whatnot, so it may take a while.

[creature386]

Infinity Blade
It's exemplary, I've indexed both of your posts here.

[dinosauria101]

Wait, haters?
Just to clarify, at no point did I think T rex was bad at macrophagy. As I said earlier, maybe a better word choice would be 'did not evolve to solo 75 tonne sauropods'