On: Modern snakes evolved from few survivors of dino-killing asteroid

[eesmith]

I think the question is more did a "handful" of snake species survive or did "many" survive?

That is, when did the diversification we see in modern snakes start?

From the paper:

> Historically, squamates were believed to have experienced minimal extinction at the K-Pg boundary ... So far, molecular divergence time analyses of snakes recover conflicting patterns ... Given this uncertainty, we attempted to improve our understanding of the timescale of crown snake diversification and the methodological factors that affect these inferences. ... Our results suggest a potential diversification of snakes near the time of the K-Pg transition.

[erhk → eesmith]

Is this possible evidence for a food chain collapse at this time?

[enkid → erhk]

I don't think there's any question that the food chain collapsed and that's what caused most of the animal extinctions.