Re: Sauropod Musings

[John Bois <jbois@umd5.umd.edu>]

On Tue, 15 Sep 1998, Rob Meyerson wrote:
 > I propose that sauropods travelled alone (or perhaps a mother/baby
unit) and that the big ones were relatively rare.  I suggest that the
young had a low survival rate, but the adults were pretty safe from all
predators, just as an adult elephant is safe from all modern predators,
except us of course.

Elephants have one baby at a time.  This was almost certainly not true of
sauropods.  I agree that the young had likely a very high mortality rate
and that once an individual reached a certain size they were practically
immune, themselves, from predation.  An open question is how much aid they
could provide to their juveniles.  Certainly not as much as elephants, I
would guess.  One more thing: animals above 1000kg. today are limited by
food not predation.  This supports your non-herding idea for sauropods.
However, predation on sauropods at different life stages was likely much
more intense than that upon elephants.
Good luck.
John Bois.