Re: Definition of "scavenging"

[Betty Cunningham <bettyc@flyinggoat.com>]

WileE81@aol.com wrote:
> Can anyone name one land animal (that does not have the distance covering
> advantage of flight) who exists  totally dependant upon scavenging without ANY
> form of predation?

I'm trying to remember the name of the bug they use to strip carcasses
down to the bone in preparing specimens

> My guess would be a racoon but arent they omnivors?
> they forage for just about anything they can get especially
> the forest dwellers.

They are also perfectly good hunters-you can't keep fish in a koi pond
around without fencing from raccoons, and they love to eat crawfish.

> (very large animals are for some reason excluded from this ,elephants for
> example for reasons I do not know.could it be that being mammals their size
> limits the number of young they may give birth to at a single time?)

yuo bet.  
 
> so who or what took care of population control if not a Tyrannosaurid?

desease, smaller hunters, food supply, social groupings, and these
ancient yam relatives......

> Wouldn't the herbivores have deforested the environment and destroy themselves
> rather than just triming the hedges for millions of years?

only once.

-Betty Cunningham