Re: The bigger they were...

["Richard W. Travsky" <rtravsky@uwyo.edu>]

On Wed, 5 Nov 2003 Pluto77189@aol.com wrote:
> Kinda makes one wonder what horrific parasites were around back then.  
> Being that some animals seem to have gone through a "giant" phase back
> then, one must wonder if parasites were doing the same thing.
>      When sperm whales were buthchered aboard ships, they'd often
> contain roundworms as long as a man.  There was an instance I read
> about where one sperm whale's stomach contained a hundred pounds of
> nematodes.
>      If dragonflies had 3 foot wingspans, whay were THEY
> eating--mosquitoes with six inch wingspans?  I would assume that an

At that size they could ust go for small animals. However, it does provide
inspiration for a remake of Jurassic Park...

> animal that grew in excess of 40 tons had somewhat think skin.  One
> would think that it too a significant mechanisim to penetrate that
> skin, even in thinner areas.  There must have been some hidieous
> bloodsuckers flying around, and some really massive ticks.  So, anyone
> ever find some nice, silver-dollar sized ticks?