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change deniers have latched on to it and made pithy statements such as, “Dinosaurs
caused global warming, too. So what's the big deal now?” The big deal is in the
numbers provided by Wilkinson and his colleagues: in a contest for methane pro-
duction in which dinosaurs take on modern humans, humans would still win. This
means that humans are unwittingly conducting an experiment to find out whether
we can reproduce Mesozoic temperatures without dinosaurs. If we succeed by con-
firming the hypothesis—elevated levels of methane in our atmosphere cause signi-
ficantly greater global temperatures—the consequences are dire for many species,
including ours. Hence, this possible dinosaur trace, one that may have maintained
globally high temperatures and therefore high sea levels—thus affecting ocean eco-
systems—is a lesson in what trials of earth history do not need repeating during our
time here.
Look at a Flower, See a Dinosaur
As hinted at in previous chapters, paleobotanists are often the Rodney Dangerfields
ofpaleontology,garneringonlyslightlymorerespectthanichnologists.Fortunately,
their relevance among vertebrate paleontologists—and especially dinosaur paleon-
tologists—has been bolstered in the past thirty years or so through their pursuing
the answer to a provocative question: Did herbivorous dinosaurs have something to
do with the evolution of flowering plants? In short, are modern flowering plants an
evolutionary trace of Mesozoic dinosaur behavior?
What is brilliant about this question is that, unlike many rhetorical inquiries
with “yes” or “no” answers that are uttered with confident finality, the answers are
probably “Yes, in part” or “No, not exactly.” These uncertain responses appropri-
atelyleadtobroaderdiscussionsofwhetherherbivorousdinosaursweretheprimary
movers and shakers in the evolution of land plants during the Mesozoic, or whether
plants were in the driver's seat, or whether a combination of the two took place. In
other words, more good science came out of following and testing this possible di-
nosaur-flower connection.
