[mr_toad]

> Suddenly, high adaptability and intelligence and resilience was what mattered, and being big and strong suddenly was a massive disadvantage.

Maybe it was just being small, puny, and having a tendency to cower in burrows was what saved us. Our ancestors may not have been much smarter than squirrels, and squirrels aren’t very bright.

Hominids brains didn’t get big until long, long after the KT extinction. A Tigers brain is not that much smaller than that of an an Australopithecus.

[kulahan]

Correct - that’s what SAVED us. What allowed us to thrive and dominate the planet was what I mentioned.

It may be more correct to say that growing a larger brain (larger than a lizard’s, I mean) was only realistically possible because of the sudden loss of predators.