Dinosaurs and mammals

[handbanana]

Mammals and reptiles have lived through major extinctions. Why reptiles did not become the dominant species over mammals?

[nornerator]

Dominance is simply a term of perspective.

Both reptiles and mammals fulfill niche's within the environments that they live. Both perform roles that the other cannot.

Both have adaptive processes that allow them to survive in certain environments better than others.

A good example of it is this:

Reptiles can survive in areas with less food resources because they do not require chemical energy to heat their bodies. However reptiles are also dependent on their environment to keep their bodies at the correct temperature.

Mammals because of their ability to maintain a steady temperature can live in a larger range of climates, but they require more chemical energy to survive, limiting the environments they can live in to ones which have a lot of chemical energy.

There are many other differences, but the point is, neither are dominant they both fill a certain ecological niche'.

I hope this helps answer your question.

[mith]

This question probably wants you to compare adaptations of mammals and reptiles.

[AstusAleator]

It's theorized that mammals arose to "dominance" in the void left after dinosaurs went extinct, which is thought to have occured as a result of the Chixulub meteor impact.

For a good account check out The Eternal Frontier, by Tim Flannery.