Re: Hadrosaur nesting strategy...(was Re: The Life of Birds- Pa

[Larry Dunn <majestic_cheese@yahoo.com>]

--- Dann Pigdon <dannj@alphalink.com.au> wrote:

> Not always so. Whales don't head towards polar
> regions to avoid
> predators, but to take advantage of the much richer
> food reserves.
> In fact, if new-born whales were able to withstand
> polar conditions
> from birth whales would probably never leave the
> polar regions.
> Adult whales hardly eat anything (sometimes nothing
> at all) while
> breeding in warmer waters.

This demonstrates a problem with analogy.

Let's not forget that whales live in the sea, and that
the same abundance of resources may not be available
at the terrestrial (or at least iced-over) Poles.

Even within the example there are evident problems. 
"Abundance" is relative.  Sperms whales take larger
prey than the other Great Whales, and feed throughout
the world.  

There may be a lesson here in analogizing birds and
non-avian dinosaurs.  There are, of course,
substantial differences between a hadrosaur and a
goose.

Even careful analogy is, in the end, only analogy.

===
Larry

"I've been ionized, but I'm okay now."

http://members.tripod.com/~megalania/index.html
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