Re: Warm-Blooded debate

["Douglas W. Lewis" <dwlewis@rmii.com>]

Jeffrey Martz wrote:

> > I thought that Komodo dragons 'get by without starving' because
> there is a
> > lack of large warm-blooded predators to compete with in their
> environment.
> > They can lie in wait for food to walk by, and then run very fast for
> a short
> > period of time.
>
>      If all or most theropods were ectotherms, they would not have had
> to
> compete with warm blooded predators either.  The point I was trying to
>
> make is that the ectothermic Komodo dragons are effective at taking
> down
> supposedly much more active, and frequently very large, endothermic
> prey.
>      In regards to Utahraptor being designed to be active, keep in
> mind
> the claws and teeth and "agility" is only needed for those very brief
> periods of attacking and killing.  I doubt they had reason to spend
> 90% of
> thier day running around doing flips and kung-fu kicks anymore then
> modern
> predators, endotherms or ectotherms.
>  Any comments?
>

         Just a few:               May I remind you that in the Jurassic
and Cretaceous(spelling?),herbivores were powerful and some were a lot
bigger than the predators. It would take a lot of energy to take down
these creatures. Now don't tell me how the Komodo drago and modern day
carnivorus ectotherms take down there prey in one quick swoop. Because
the dinosaurian herbivores during these time periods were like I said
before,powerful. They didn't want to be eaten. It would take even more
effort to take down large sauropods and ceratopsians.

                                 Caleb

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/6619/index.html

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