Re: Predation categories (per...

[John Schneiderman <dino@revelation.unomaha.edu>]

On Fri, 3 Feb 1995 Flyinggoat@aol.com wrote:

> >Tyrannosaurids would be in a good position to bully any other >theropod away
> from a corpse (dromaeosaurids arguably may be >more deadly pound for pound,
> but tyrannosaurids had a LOT more >pounds...)
> 
>     I've recently begun speculating on whether T Rex was more likely to
> harass the juveniles of it's own species. 
>     My supposition was that: T Rex juveniles (siblings) were pack hunters
> till they reached a certain size (and probably damn good pack hunters, too),
> then when the kill would not have enough to feed a group of larger
> individuals, they would seperate as a pack and become individual hunters (in
> the traditonal view of T Rex), with (probably) the largest individual keeping
> the original territory and the others being chased off to find their own.
>     This leads to other interesting speculation about how the T Rex grouping
> may have been matriarchal, with the large individual being female laying a
> brood and then leaving the brood to survive as pack hunters (being smaller
> and more energy efficient they would be more capable of bringing down larger
> and more numerous prey) and then the large individual (MOM) while keeping
> tabs on her territory, following and harassing her own progeny off of kills
> they had made, like lions following hyeanas to chase them off of a kill, just
> so she wouldn't have to expend more energy in hunting for herself.  
>     This leads to even more speculation on behavior and pecking order within
> the pack, with it also being run by the largest individual (little mom) as
> alpha hunter, and thus the cycle would lead to large single females
> reproducing in an area, her progeny surviving and hunting as a group in the
> same area, the large single female bullying them off of kills to feed
> herself,(EITHER) her pack-progeny growing up and becomeing too large for the
> territory to support so many T Rexs in a given area and so Mom runs everbody
> off of her territory when they get too big (where they can also go looking
> for mates of their own), (OR) the pack gets too big to support itself and
> everybody seperates to go loking for their own territory (and mates of their
> own), (OR MAYBE EVEN) little mom takes on big mom for the territory-rights,
> and the winner chases everybody off.  This cycle would allow the adult and
> teen males to be wanderers, generally, and therefore less likely to set up
> territory on their own, however I believe a large male could set himself up
> in a similar situation.  I am assuming, however, that females would be bigger
> than males and more likely to win an intimidation display with another T Rex.
>     Pure speculation, I know. 
> 
> Betty Cunningham(Flyinggoat@aol.com)
> 
Hey!! I like this....speculation or not....
---John Schneiderman (dino@revelation.unomaha.edu)