Tony Swain has called attention to the fact that during the Cretaceous period there were important changes in the composition of flora, including the relatively rapid rise of flowering angiosperms (see "Morphology and Biology of Reptiles" in Linnean Society Symposiums Series 3, 1976). He hypothesized that the ability of flowering plants to produce hydrolysable tañnins as deterrents to their consumption and the appearance of toxic alkaloid angiosperms may have had a deleterious effect on the large herbivorous dinosaurs.
As an extension of Swain's hypothesis, it is interesting to note that recent psychological research has documented the presence of a striking ability to form associations between novel flavors and gastrointestinal distress in a large cross section of mammalian, avian and reptilian species. Such taste aversions frequently can be learned in a single trial, with long delays separating ingestion and illness. These aversions are also immune to the effects of retrograde amnesia ...
