Re: Phorusrhacids killing large mammals in National Geographic Channel

[B tH <soylentgreenistrex@yahoo.com>]

Was this supposed to reflect reality?
I thought all the mammals of this period were fairly small,
outside of the 'walking whales'?
Or was it one of those 'who would win in a fight' presentations?


--- On Tue, 7/21/09, Augusto Haro <augustoharo@gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Augusto Haro <augustoharo@gmail.com>
> Subject: Phorusrhacids killing large mammals in National Geographic Channel
> To: "vrtpaleo" <VRTPALEO@usc.edu>, "Dinosaur Mailing List" <dinosaur@usc.edu>
> Date: Tuesday, July 21, 2009, 3:32 AM
> Last night I was watching a show at
> Nat Geo with phorusrhacids killing
> mammals larger than themselves like Woody Woodpecker,
> hitting with
> their beak, and apparently the downcurved tip of the upper
> jaw (as a
> sidenote, one also put a wolf to sleep with a karate kick
> on the
> head). As far as I know, no Recent bird uses the curved tip
> of the
> upper jaw in this way, but it helps tearing flesh from
> corpses. In the
> show it is also said that the beak is largely hollow...
> would not this
> make the beak more fragile, and thus less likely to perform
> such
> blows?
> 
> Is there a recent study suggesting phorusrhacids hitted the
> prey with
> their beaks instead of just biting?
>