Re: Big = Old = Advanced?

[Jeffrey Martz <martz@holly.ColoState.EDU>]

> I don't disagree with anything you say.  What I meant by saying the
> dinosaur shouldn't lay excess is this. 

     What makes you think it is?  Species lay as many eggs as is needed to
keep the population stable under thier environmental conditions.  What
makes you think the dinosaurs were not laying exactly as many eggs as they
needed to make up the difference?

> thrive in this place.  Local predators start preying on them and they
> repond by upping clutch size.  The resource (eggs and hatchlings) is now
> so bountiful that local predators cannot eat it all.  And some sort of
> equilibrium is reached.

     Right.

> But my point with dinosaurs is that they could not have as big a skill
> differential as modern prey and their predators.  Sorry to repeat, but a
> goose can leave its home predators in the dust, while, for all we know,
> hadrosaurs brought every single predator with them.  

     I'm afraid I don't know what "skill differential" means.  I have been
out of the loop for a while and this discussion may have gone in new
directions.  Could you please explain a little more?

LN Jeff
O-