The bigger they were, the bigger everything else quite probably was

[zone65@bigpond.com]

On Wednesday, November 5, 2003, at 10:03  AM, MariusRomanus@aol.com 
wrote:

> Dann Pigdon wrote:
>
> > > And yet elephants aren't phased by mud. In fact, they seek it out to 
> > > wallow in in hot weather (and to keep bighting insects at bay). <<
>
> Richard W. Travsky wrote:
>
> > > Hmmm. Anything found that looks like a sauropod (or other beastie) 
> > > wallowing spot? <<
>
> You know this HAD to have been going on with dinosaurs. Imagine what a 
> living hell, sauropods for example (but this goes for all of them), 
> had to endure with biting insects swarming around their faces, 
> especially their nostrils... gettin at those soft blood rich tissues. 
> (I wouldn't count out that their nostrils were laden with parasites 
> like lice either.) Given the monsoonal regimes the animals apparently 
> were under

So I wonder why some people are always saying sauropods lived in dry 
areas?

> I remember being up in Quebec right after the ice had gone out. Things 
> were fine for about a week, but then it started to get warm. As soon 
> as the temp hit 80, it was like the gates of hell opened up. On came 
> the head nets and long sleeves... but not before one of those suckers 
> sliced out a chunk of skin from my eye lid, leaving me a nice circular 
> scar. I'll never forget seeing 3 moose come running out of the woods 
> not 15 feet from o!
> ur boat and diving into the river to get away from the flies.

Now, does this add weight, so to speak, to the argument that sauropods 
WOULD have spent much of their time in the water...? Or would the lakes 
and rivers also have been teeming with insufferable parasites back 
then? Giant leeches, for example, or perhaps hagfish types.

> And I guess I might as well bring this up... If any of you saw Dave 
> Peters' talk on the Chinese Vampire, *Jeholopterus ningchengensis*, I 
> hope you were thinking the same thing I was as to where this little 
> monster was feeding.


That fires the ol'  imagination up! Any more info on this beastie?

Peter Markmann