Re: The absurdity, the absurdity (was: Cooperating theropods?)

["Larry Dunn" <larrydunn@hotmail.com>]

Chris Campbell wrote (discussing the Tugrugeen Velociraptor):

>Why assume anything about that?  

Because it's evidence of the Digit II claw in action.  Are you 
suggesting that the protoceratops was preying on the velociraptor?

How can you accept that as an even
>remotely normal case?  

Because it's evidence.  Real evidence.  As opposed to the total *lack* 
of evidence for the gang bang theory of dromaeosaur tactics, supported 
as it is by analogs from the briny deep and under the soil.

>> Apples and oranges.  The sea is a different place from the land.
>
>Irrelevant.  

Very relevant.  Life in the sea opens oppotunities but closes some doors 
too.  Maritime examples are as absurd as analogizing dromaeosaurs to 
ants. 

>We're talking about pack tactics and brain size.  Sharks
>don't have brains to speak of, and use pack tactics on a rudimentary
>level.  

This depends on how you're defining "pack tactics."  In order to suit 
your hypothesis you've defined it down so much that it's lost any 
meaning -- whenever more than one animal is involved in a prey event 
it's pack hunting. 

And why is it that you say that we can't analogize dromaeosaur behavior 
with extant large vertebrate carnivores (because their configuration is 
so different) but you are ready to analogize them to sharks and ants? 

>The bottom line is,
>you don't need brains to operate in a pack.  You only need them in a
>pack that has some complexity to it.

Sharks as pack hunters is news to me, and I'd venture to guess that it'd 
be news to icthyologists as well.  

So who's defining which packs have complexity to them and which don't?  
It's time to stop and take stock in your hypothesis.  You've had to 
deploy an entire series of assumptions about dromaeosaur lifestyle in 
order to shoehorn them into a faux mammalian lifestyle.  You've also had 
to run away from fossil evidence of dromaeosaur predation.

>You don't need to be smart to work with others.

Sharks don't work with each other.  They work only and exclusively for 
themselves.  So do Oras, for that matter.

>>Birds are inapposite for much the same reasons; 
>
>Say what?  Birds are dinosaurs!  If they can do it, any old therapod 
can
>as well.

Chimps are primates too, so do you let them do your dentistry for you? 

>>anyway, some people on this list had to bend over backwards 
>>to find *any* hunting cooperation among birds.  
>
>Maybe because folks on the list aren't ornithologists?  Possibly? 
>Maybe?  Grab a bird guy and see how tough it is to find the example
>you're talking about.

I don't agree with this assessment of list members.  There are some list 
members who are quite knowledgable about ornithology.  

More to the point, though, if you're proposing pack-hunting birds, *you* 
grab a "bird guy" and offer some substantiation.

>I'm suggesting that some lizards work together on occasion to bring
>down a meal.  Simple concept.

And totally false.  Lizards do not work together to bring down prey.  

>You seem equate pack hunting with mammal-scale tactics and
>strategy.

I equate this behavior with the animals that actually employ it.  

Dromaeosaurs resemble terrestrial vertebrate carnivores much more 
closely than they do ants, sharks, pirahna, spiders, amoeba or tape 
worms.  And yes, more than they do birds too.

>Bottom line: if lizards, sharks, and birds can work cooperatively to
>bring down prey, so can dromaeosaurs.
 
But they don't do any such thing.  Ora don't even attack the same prey 
animal at the same time.  Most commonly, other ora will arrive in time 
to share in the meal, not the kill.  They do not lunge out at the same 
prey animal at the same time.

Birds?  Which birds?  How?  And even if you are able to name one or two 
species that do something roughly equating to cooperation,  what does 
this mean, considering 1) that X thousand other bird species do not and 
2) that birds have feathers and wings and fly around quite a bit, things 
Deinonychus did not have or do. Would you suggest that these traits of 
birds have no effect on their behavior?

As to shark feeding, biting the same fish does not cooperation make.  
Sharks would attack their prey if they were the only shark in the area 
or if there are hundreds.  Would Deinonychus attack Tenontosaurus 
regardless of the presence or absence of other Deinonychus?

Larry

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