Re: BBC2 Horizon and South American Dinos

[Larry Dunn <majestic_cheese@yahoo.com>]

--- jocelyn <jocelyn.m.hasskamp@stud.man.ac.uk> wrote:

> Mainly I wasn't
> convinced by 
> the sceptics who thought that Giganotosaurus
> couldnot have 
> shown 'pack hunting' characteristics in order to
> kill their quarry.  

Well, why do you assume that _Giganotosaurus_ hunted
_Argentinosaurus_?  Wasn't there anything else for
_Giganotosaurus_ to eat, other than (arguably) the
largest animal ever to walk the earth?

> Surely its a characteristic that when faced with the
> dilemma of how 
> to successfully hunt an animal much larger than
> yourself some sort 
> of 'rudementary' and i stress that form of
> cooperative hunting 
> behaviour would evolve (re: hyena example).  

If something "makes sense" to humans, it doesn't
necessarily follow that animals will "get it" and do
so.

And does it "make sense" in the first place?  What
makes more sense -- for foxes to go out and sensibly
hunt animals smaller than themselves, or for a "pack"
of ambitious foxes to hunt elk?  There's a good chance
that the fox pack will lose one or more of their
number, right?  The object of the game is to survive,
not to go for the gusto.

The pack hunting red herring just won't swim away,
will it?  Maybe if we all wish hard enough that
dinosaurs were just analogies of the large predators
we know and love, they will become so ....

=====
Larry

"Catapultam habeo. Nisi Pecuniam omnen mihi dabis ad capul tuum saxum immane 
mittam."

http://members.tripod.com/~megalania/index.html

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