RE: T. REX THE HUNTER(finding cover) LONG

[Sue Blakey <ellensb@trib.com>]

FWIT (Is that appropriate for "For what it's worth?")
I offer a piece of info to add to your thinking about carnivore hunting:
One of the sites we have uncovered at our digs on the Warm Springs Ranch 
appears to be a feeding site. This is in the Morrison Formation (Jurassic) 
in north-central  Wyoming.
We have:
* Lots of footprints squished over each other as if the area were soft  and 
there was a lot of activity, not just a "passing by" track.
* Lots of teeth (allosaur, in this case) , both what appear to be adult and 
juvenile. Allosaurs shed teeth fairly consistently as they ate; the 
presence of several sizes of teeth indicates presence of several sizes/ages 
of the critter.
* Bones - lots of bones, different from the bones in our other dig sites in 
this manner: the bones in the other dig sites where we are fairly certain 
bones were deposited/washed by water/river/streams are smooth, rounded. The 
bones in the feeding site are sharply broken, cracked, gnawed, with lots of 
teeth marks. Because of this difference in the bone, it is apparent that 
these were reasonably fresh kills, not stuff that had been lying around a 
long time on a flood plain.
* But -- and here's the real point I guess -- they are not the bones of one 
animal, but of several types (i.e.., stegosaur plates, diplodocus tail, 
etc.) and they are all PARTS that could easily have been transported -- a 
leg torn off and returned to the feeding site, an arm, etc.
So it appears to us that the allosaurs (at least) were simply tearing off 
part of the kill and carting that to a spot where perhaps the young waited 
-- not dragging an entire animal.
Whether one critter was left to watch over the kill while the other carried 
parts back to the site, who knows? Or whether she (I suspect it was a she, 
if not a they)  took what they could get and left the rest for the 
camp-followers, we can't say.
The site is on the side of the mountain, and when the weather clears, we'll 
be working further back into the mountain, where there is clear indication 
of more remains.
Ellen Sue Blakey, Education Director
The Wyoming Dinosaur Center/Warm  Springs Ranch dig sites/Thermopolis, 
Wyoming
ellensb@trib.com
-----Original Message-----
From:   Gigi Babcock or Ralph Miller III [SMTP:gbabcock@best.com]
Sent:   Thursday, February 19, 1998 2:09 PM
To:     WileE81@aol.com; dinosaur@usc.edu
Subject:        Re: T. REX THE HUNTER