Re: Fw: parental care (cobra)

[Dann Pigdon <dannj@alphalink.com.au>]

Thomas de Wilde wrote:
> 
> The fact that both birds and crocs do something, prooves for 80% or more
> that dinosaurs did the same. 

Then again, birds and crocs survived the K/T extinction event. Perhaps
one of the differences that allowed them to do so was in the way they
guarded nests and young? Extant behaviour can't always be extrapolated
into the past for extinct species, since it can't be determined whether
it was the differences in that very behaviour that determined survival
verses extinction. 

It's the same problem with inferring diet from fossil stomach contents.
What if the items present in the gut were what killed the animal?

> But to be sure of dinosaur behaviour we have to
> be able to travel through time.

Hah! Not even then. There are plenty of extant species for which we know
almost nothing. Even things as large as whale sharks are mostly a
mystery, despite a lot of scientific research. Trying to find a sauropod
or two in the Mesozoic world wouldn't have been as easy as you'd think.
Even elephants can be difficult to track down in some environments.

-- 
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Dann Pigdon                   Australian Dinosaurs:
GIS / Archaeologist         http://www.geocities.com/dannsdinosaurs
Melbourne, Australia        http://www.alphalink.com.au/~dannj/
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