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

[MariusRomanus@aol.com]

>> 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 < <

Peter Markmann writes:

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

Monsoonal atmospheric circulation pattern... Only getting rain (and lots of it) 
during part of the year, but only for a brief period of time. Rest of the year? 
Dry. Some rain in the dry season? More than likely, but probably only in 
isolated areas of convergence, upsloping, areas under a coastal influence, etc. 
So, saying that sauropods lived in dry habitats is still correct. Look at it 
this way... out West... Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, etc... Dry right?... 
Deserts even. Well, they are actually under a monsoonal regime... The Four 
Corners High as it's called. Look at all of the rain the area gets in the 
summer... especially this past summer when there was lots of flooding.

>> 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 our boat and 
>> diving into the river to get away from the flies. <<

Peter Markmann writes:

>  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. <

Nah... This doesn't add a speck of weight to sauropods spending extended 
periods of time in water. If you want to use my lil story to point toward 
aquatic sauropods, then you better use it to point at ALL dinosaurs being water 
lovers since irritating flies would apply to all of them.

Kris

http://hometown.aol.com/Saurierlagen/Paleo-Photography.html