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RE: Built Like a Race Horse, Slow as an Elephant?



> Come to think of it: have there been any modern-day correllation studies
> between predator speeds and prey speeds?  Could you predict anything about
> one from the other?  Probably not any direct deductions, but any positive
> results would be intriguing.

I'm sure there've been studies, but this situation is covered by the
Life-Dinner Principle, named (I think by Krebs and Dawkins) after the
punchline of one of Aesop's Fables: the hare is running for his life, but
the fox is only running for his dinner.  Predators can live with fairly
frequent failure in individual chases. Also, except on a perfectly flat and
open plain, pursuit predators do not generally need to be even as fast as
their prey because they can take advantage of geometry (cutting corners if
the prey changes course), topography and other obstacles or accidents
letting them close in.  Large herbivorous dinosaurs - like hares, but unlike
rabbits - probably didn't escape down holes, and they'd be slowed down by a
ridge, gully or bad decision often enough for rex to get his meat.

John
 
-----------------------------------------------
Dr John D. Scanlon
Palaeontologist, 
Riversleigh Fossil Centre, Outback at Isa
19 Marian Street / PO Box 1094
Mount Isa  QLD  4825
AUSTRALIA
Ph:   07 4749 1555
Fax: 07 4743 6296
Email: riversleigh@outbackatisa.com.au
http://tinyurl.com/f2rby


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Eric Martichuski [mailto:herewiss13@hotmail.com]
> Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2007 2:39 PM
> To: dinosaur@usc.edu
> Subject: RE: Built Like a Race Horse, Slow as an Elephant?
> 
> It's all well and good to try and put absolute speeds on T-rex...and the
> idea that the young were much faster creates some interesting speculation
> on
> possible age-based roles in pack hunting.  I'm curious, however, about
> what
> we know about the speed of _prey_.
> 
> This may be more germane to earlier large theropods, but if you have to
> chase down sauropods for a living...you don't have to be all that fast.
> 
> I know sauropods are somewhat scarcer on the ground in the late
> Cretaceous,
> so what sort of speeds do we have for ceratopsians and duckbills?  If the
> fastest prey species can only run at 10 miles an hour, then a 15 mph
> predator is basically strolling through the buffet line of life.
> 
> Come to think of it: have there been any modern-day correllation studies
> between predator speeds and prey speeds?  Could you predict anything about
> one from the other?  Probably not any direct deductions, but any positive
> results would be intriguing.
> 
> What would you term such a study?  Ecological biomechanics? ;-)
> 
> Eric
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