RE: Follow-up on Lions of Savuti

["Stewart, Dwight" <Dwight.Stewart@VLSI.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chris Campbell [SMTP:Sankarah@ou.edu]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 09, 1999 10:11 AM
> To:   dinosaur@usc.edu
> Subject:      Re: Follow-up on Lions of Savuti
> 
> >            Hmmm... Well so much for using that as an analogy for
> theropods
> > predating adult sauropods. :-)
> 
> Presumably they'd have less trouble with juveniles.  Which is what I'd
> expect them to go for, in any event.
        @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

           No, I don't.  With modern prey/predator relationships (when the
prey animal is many X's larger than the predator)
        it is the very young, the very old, the sick, trapped, or injured
who are selected.  It's simply not in the best interest
        of a predator to risk serious injury attempting to take down an
enormous prey animal.  Now, I'm NOT saying that predators never act out of
desperation, but these don't represent their normal hunting patterns.  A
species survives as a successful predator in large part because they are
good at exploiting their niche in the environment.
          
> >            Now, I'm NOT saying adult sauropods were never predated, it's
> > simply difficult to believe that they were routinely predated.
> 
> We can't prove anything at all.  All of this is speculation, and can never
> be anything but.  We still don't know what was up with the fighting dinos
> in
> Mongolia, for example, and even though we know a hadrosaur healed wounds
> from a tyrannosaur bite we still don't know how common active predation on
> hadrosaurs by tyrannosaurs was.  We never will know these things, and the
> best we can do is make reasonably informed guesses.
> --
> Oh my God!  They've killed Kosh!  You bastards!
> Chris Campbell        Sankarah@ix.netcom.com
        @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

           Yes, I'd say I agree with that - in the main.  Now, IF we find
substantial evidence of cooperative hunting techniques among carnivores
dinosaurs, I would find the "preying on VERY large animals" idea more
        palatable.  

        Regards;
        Dwight

        P.S.: Thanks for all of the other folks for the corrections of
"predated", I needed a good chuckle last night;
        it's "performance appraisal" time here!  Grrrrr... :-)