"David Lloyd-Jones" <dlj@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:3E3581C8.60205@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> So, again, why do marsupials have such small brains? Why don't kangaroos
> rule the planet? Or is becoming marsupial the next stage in humanity's
> evolution?
>
> Or, contrarily, is intelligence just not very im****tant in evolution's
> scheme of things?
Apparently South America had lots of really groovy marsupials...until the
Isthmus of Panama rose. Then (placental) mammals from North America came
down and apparently competed them into extinction. The source I read (not
a
scientific journal, some popular press thing) said that that wasn't
because
placentals are better, but rather because they had been honed by stiffer
competition up here in the north.
One of the animals was (IIRC) the marsupial version of a saber-tooth
tiger.
BTW, what makes you think that evolutionary bio is a sub-discipline of
econ?
Seems to me it's the other way around.
Best,
sjfromm
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