Re: Tyrannosaurus rex and its youngsters

["Cunningham, Betty" <bcunning@nssi.com>]

        We don't know how may adult T rex would live in a given area.  Sue 
     and her 2 fellows may be on the same horizon, and Sue may have all 
     those T rex bite marks, BUT that doesn't tell us the population 
     density of a predator that was dang big and hard to keep fed, 
     endothermic or not.  
        If a given area had to support a large, breeding competitive 
     population (males fighting other males to breed with one or more 
     females) the many T rex and their progeny in that area would then eat 
     a lot more of whatever in that area.
       If the breeding population were mated pairs in a claimed territory, 
     that would bring the numbers of T rex an area had to support down to 2 
     plus progeny.
       If the female only claimed territory, bred with a roving male, and 
     then chased him off, it would bring the numbers of T rex an area had 
     to provide for down to 1 plus progeny.
        If the male and female were solitary, and only hung around each 
     other to breed, and then BOTH moved on, that would only leave the area 
     having to support T rex progeny, at least until they got big enough to 
     wander off on like their parents.
        What happens when the progeny survives long enough to compete with 
     the adult(s) in a given area?
        If T rex fed off of hadrosaurs exclusively, they would hang out 
     where hadrosaurs hung out (especially juvenile and teen T rex hanging 
     out near breeding grounds)
        If T rex fed on ceratopsians exclusively, they would hang out near 
     where ceratopsians herded.
       So what do we have?  We don't have enough info.
     
     -Betty
     
     
     Rachel said:
A Tyrannosaurus wouldn't be cannibalistic towards its OWN young.  But a male 
that wasn't the father had damn good reasons to kill the youngsters -- he must 
spread his genes, and killing the other male's youngsters eliminates another 
generation of his genes passing down.  Cannibalism can make perfect 
evolutionary sense to some carnivores.