Re: My Gr. 9 Science Fair Project: Questions

[Ed Seidl <eseidl@cris.com>]

At 09:04 1/3/97 +1030, Stephen Throop wrote:

>If the duckbill swam to get far from the tyrannosaur, could the
>croc close the distance before the croc's anaerobic energy ran out?

If crocs couldn't catch a duckbill what did they catch that was slower? Fish?
You seem to think that a croc runs out of energy after swimming a few feet.
I think you are way off in your assumption.  Watch the next Discover show
about crocodiles and I think you will get a different picture.

>The time I tried to shoot crows for my uncle, it was like the line from
>"Butch Cassidy": "Who ARE those guys?"
>
>Their sentry realized I was armed long before a human would have.  Like
>a croc swimming underwater, I used the woods to stay out of sight as I
>kept trying to get into range of the crows in the field.  The sentry
>always anticipated where I would appear.  He'd greet me sarcastically,
>and I'd see that the flock had already shifted just out of range.
>
>Finally, I tried a shot from so far away that I aimed nine inches high.
>Amazingly, I killed the crow.  The flock responded with contempt.  The
>nearest ones moved a little farther away.  All continued pecking corn.
>Now that they knew my range, I never got another shot.  They always
>anticipated where I would appear and stayed just out of range, as if
>defying me to try again.

I find this hard to believe.  For one you are naming human characterstics
that I seriously doubt crows have.  "sarcastically", "contempt", "defying
me".  Come on.

>Birds are used as models to speculate about dinosaurs.  If I were a
>croc, I'd hate to be hunting dinosaurs if they were as smart as crows.

Big if.  Besides crocs and other "dumb" reptiles eat birds.  (Snapping
turtles, snakes, -  Discover showed a turtle in Africa that grabbed a bird
by the waters edge and a bunch of the turtles actually chased the wounded
bird on the shoreline.)

Ed Seidl