Re: Big = Old = Advanced?

[Ronald Orenstein <ornstn@inforamp.net>]

>As I read this, you seem to have invalidated your own point.  To repeat
>from your post:
>>animals that do not keep their young in nests
>
>My understanding is that Horner's assertion is that there  *IS*  evidence
>for parental nest care of the young.  Has this been invalidated?  If not,
>the correlation between nest care and large clutch size holds, as both
>are evidenced in _Maiasaura_.

You missed my point.  What I was trying to say was that the reason that
large herbivorous mammals have small clutch sizes may not be because they
are large, but because the young have to be born fully developed as they do
not shelter in nests.  Therefore the reason large dinosaurs have larger
clutches may also have nothing to do with size, but with the adoption of a
nest strategy allowing young to be born helpless (as eggs, in fact).  I was
hedging slightly on Maiasaur because there still appears to be controversy
on how long the young stayed in the nest - and of course we have no
information on breeding strategy for whole groups of dinosaurs.  Am I right
in assuming that ceratopian eggs are unknown now that the "Protoceratops"
clutches have been assigned to Oviraptor?
--
Ronald I. Orenstein                           Phone: (905) 820-7886
International Wildlife Coalition              Fax/Modem: (905) 569-0116
1825 Shady Creek Court                 
Mississauga, Ontario, Canada L5L 3W2          mailto:ornstn@inforamp.net