Number of Species: Birds > Frogs > Mammals

choi

Frogs  l  Failure to Croak; some surprising beneficiaries of a cataclysmic event. Economist, July 6, 2017.
https://www.economist.com/news/s ... post-dinosaur-world

Note:
(a) "AROUND 66m years ago Earth collided with a space rock so large that it punched a crater more than 180km across in the area now known as the Yucatán peninsula, in southern Mexico. This collision did for the dinosaurs and many other sorts of animal besides. It thus wiped much of the ecological slate clean, permitting the survivors [to prosper] * * * Human beings, with phylocentric arrogance, often refer to the subsequent period, extending to the present day, as the 'Age of Mammals' * * * [but frogs do better] with almost 6,800 living species. * * * frogs have been around for a long time. Their fossils date back at least 190m years (the oldest known mammals date from 230m years ago)."
(b) "So, is the post-dinosaur world truly the Age of Frogs? That rather depends on what is meant by 'post-dinosaur.' For a different cladogram * * * shows that one group of dinosaurs not only survived the impact but, with almost 10,000 living species, has outperformed both frogs and mammals. Those surviving dinosaurs, though shorn of teeth and with added wings, nevertheless remain members of the theropoda, a group that also includes Tyrannosaurus rex [lived throughout what is now western North America, 68 to 66 million years ago: en.wikipedia.org]. It is just that, these days, they are known as 'birds.' "
(c) There is no need to read the rest.