Questions (very, very long)

["Dino Rampage" <dino_rampage@hotmail.com>]

Hi, here¡¦s a HUGE bunch of questions to ask. This time the focus is on 
Pleistocene megafauna¡K

1) I understand that some terror birds like Titanis had two-fingered 
¡¥hands¡¦ on their wings. What was the possible function of these claws? I 
always thought that the huge beak & powerful legs alone were enough to make 
short work of prey. Could these ¡¥hands¡¦ have evolved as a result of 
dealing with faster, smaller prey? Maybe it¡¦s because as the Pleistocene 
progressed the liptopterns & notoungulates were being replaced by bovids, 
cervids & equids¡K relatively swifter prey. And were these hands stiff & 
immobile, or were the digits capable of moving independently of each other & 
thus aid in gripping prey while the mouth did its work, much like the 
similar hands of the tyrannosaurs?

2) And while we¡¦re on the subject of terror birds, are the hands of Titanis 
a derived or conservative trait? I read from the Terror Bird website (sadly 
now defunct) that it was most likely that only Titanis & it¡¦s closest kin 
had these claws. Therefore, other terror birds like Phorusrhacos & 
Andalgornis would lack these hands. How true is this? Or is it more likely 
that while basal terror birds had claws, the more derived forms like Titanis 
had fully-fledged hands? Or is it possible that all terror birds had these 
hands? Also, which is the type species of Phorusrhacos, P. inflatus or P. 
longissimus? And by the way, I¡¦ve always found the Phorusrhacos in WWPB to 
be a little on the scrawny side, looking more like chickens on steroids and 
being bullied by the Smilodon, unlike the highly successful, deadly 
predators they really are. And were terror birds really so gracile? I¡¦ve 
always thought of them as being robust and heavy-bodied, much like the 
Gastornis in Episode 1. Come to think of it, while I found the G really 
intimidating, the P failed to shake me. (Maybe that¡¦s why they put G. in 
the opening sequence & not P.)

3) Have terror bird fossils been discovered in the La Brea area? So far 
I¡¦ve learnt that Titanis remains have been found in Florida & surrounding 
states, but I know nothing about Rancho La Brea (except that if terror birds 
were absent, there were the huge teratorns, which I think were just as 
majestic & magnificent, just that they seemed to resemble turkey vultures on 
steroids) And are there any good restorations of terror birds on the Web?

4) How long is the history of the brown bear Ursus arctos? What was its 
probable ancestor? How old are the oldest U. arctos remain & how long did it 
coexist with U. spelaeus the cave bear? Just when did the cave bear go 
extinct? And is it true that U. arctos is the probable ancestor of U. 
maritimus the polar bear? Just how ancient is the polar bear as a species? 
And how long has U. arctos lived in North America? I read that while U. 
americanus the American black bear evolved within the continent, U. arctos 
evolved in Eurasia & arrived very recently, not along with the woolly 
mammoths, lions & grey wolves, but at the same time as humans did. Is this 
true? Does this mean that U. arctos would not have been present in North 
America alongside mastodons, mammoths, ground sloths, horses, camels, dire 
wolves & the other assorted American megafauna?

5) Is it the general consensus that the American lion is a subspecies of the 
lion Panthera leo? And what about the Cave Lion? I think that the 
classification of all lion taxa from the Late Pleistocene & Holocene can be 
listed here:

1) Panthera leo leo (African Lion. Africa, possibly southern Europe. 
Includes the Barbary & Cape races)
2) P. leo persica (Asiatic Lion. Once ranged from Turkey to India, now 
restricted to the Gir forest in India)
3) P. leo spelaea (Cave Lion. Northern Eurasia from Britain east to Siberia)
4) P. leo atrox (American Lion. Americas, from Alaska south to Peru)

How accurate is this classification? And I¡¦ve read old accounts of lions 
roaming the forests around ancient Rome & Greece. Were these likely to have 
belonged to the African or Asiatic race?

Furthermore, how similar were spelaea & atrox to leo? I recall old 
restorations (when these two were considered separate species) that depicted 
them as generalised big cats. But since these were subspecies of P. leo, I 
feel it is likely that this was a sexually dimorphic species, with males 
having manes. And I feel that in the northern races (spelaea, atrox), the 
coat colour was still tawny brown, but perhaps slightly more spotted. And 
most importantly, these cats lived in prides.

What irked me was how the cave lion was depicted in WWPB. Here we have a 
extinct subspecies of a still extant species, and the morphology of this cat 
is almost opposite that of our modern lion. The cave lion is shown to be 
white, maneless, solitary and with a stumpy tail. Is there any evidence for 
this? I¡¦ve heard that cave paintings depicted lions with spotted coats 
(this I can accept; even today many lions retain their faint spots into 
adulthood) but stumpy tails? If spelaea & leo belong to the same species 
(which I indeed believe) here we have a case of extreme variation within a 
single species. Just look at the various subspecies of big cat we have: The 
African leopard looks like the Indian leopard looks like the Javan leopard. 
The Siberian tiger looks like the Bengal tiger looks like the Sumatran 
tiger. The African lion is virtually indistinguishable from the Asiatic 
lion. Besides slight differences in size, coat colour & pattern, the various 
subspecies are difficult to distinguish from each other without knowing 
their place of origin. Then why on earth did the people at the BBC restore a 
subspecies of lion so differently from its modern counterparts????

6) What was the prehistoric range of leopards? Leopards are found throughout 
Africa, the Middle East, India, parts of Siberia & all the way south to the 
Malay Peninsula & Java, but did their range extend into Europe in 
prehistoric times? And I¡¦ve read that tiger remains have been found in 
North America. What were these, Siberian tigers that wandered across the 
Bering? How common are these finds, and how did people know these were 
tigers? Lion & tiger bones are virtually identical. (Unless of course, 
people found a scrap of skin showing stripes : )

7) Did any of the North American species like mastodons, dire wolves & 
short-faced bears cross the Bering into Siberia? When musk ox, saiga 
antelope, woolly mammoth, brown bears, grey wolves, moose, reindeer, red 
deer (if elk and wapiti are considered the same species as the red deer of 
Eurasia) and lions can make the trip, why not any of the North American 
fauna? I can only think of horses as those that made the trip west.

8)  What was the prehistoric range of Crocuta crocuta the spotted hyena? Is 
it the same cave hyena of Ice Age Eurasia? Would this make the cave hyena 
Crocuta crocuta spelaea? And besides Crocuta, were there any other hyenas in 
Eurasia? What was the prehistoric range of the striped hyena Hyaena hyaena? 
And were there any other Late Pleistocene hyaena taxa?

9) Just how many species of proboscideans survived into the Late 
Pleistocene? I know of the Columbian & woolly mammoths, Mammuthus columbi & 
M. primigenius, & the American mastodon, Mammut americanum, as well as 
Loxodonta the African elephants & Elephas the Asian elephant & its kin. What 
about other groups like gomphotheres, deinotheres & mastodons? I know of the 
gomphothere Cuvieronius, as well as other proboscideans like Anancus, 
Stegodon, Deinotherium, Haplomastodon, Stegomastodon (The classification of 
these I¡¦m not so sure. Which were gomphotheres? Which were mastodons? Which 
were elephants?) & others, but exactly which survived until the advent of 
humans? The term ¡¥Late Pleistocene¡¦ makes the period seem so short, but in 
just 2 million years so many species of proboscidean went extinct. And 
Africa is the real enigma: From what I know, in prehistoric Africa Loxodonta 
lived in the forests, while the savannas had Elephas recki. Only when 
Elephas died out did Loxodonta move onto the plains and evolve into the bush 
elephant L. africana. I can thus safely state that L. cyclotis the forest 
elephant is the more conservative species. But just what wiped out Elephas 
recki? And how recently did it die out? Could it have been caused partly by 
humans and climate? Or what about the Elephas antiquus of southern Eurasia & 
the dwarf E. falconeri f the Mediterranean islands? How did they meet their 
end?

And while we¡¦re on elephants, why is it that virtually every extinct 
proboscidean I see is restored with a trunk? Every proboscidean, from 
Phiomia to Gomphotherium to Deinotherium, Ambelodon, Mammut all the way to 
Stegodon & Mammuthus has a long, well-formed trunk? Is it possible that the 
trunk is a derived trait and thus only elephantids would possess it? What 
got me thinking was that the Deinotherium in WWPB was restored with a very 
short trunk, unlike the familiar long-trunked deinotheres I grew up with. Is 
the presence and length of the trunk merely based on artistic license? Or is 
it because Moeritherium itself had a short trunk? Why not restore mastodons 
or gomphotheres with tapir-noses then?

Of course, I would prefer my gomphotheres & deinotheres with long trunks 
thank you, but my personal aesthetic opinion doesn¡¦t count. Exactly what is 
true, that proof for long well-developed trunks can be inferred only for 
elephantids, or that such trunks were prevalent throughout the entire 
proboscidean tree? Or is it possible to infer that these proboscidean taxa 
had long trunks through comparing the length of their legs with their necks 
(A short trunked proboscidean would have to stoop in order to eat and drink)

10) I know this question isn¡¦t really relevant, but I¡¦m a little confused. 
What is the taxonomic status of our modern-day horses? There are several 
arrangements I¡¦ve found, all of which are mutually exclusive with each 
other:

Classification 1
Equus caballus ¡V domestic horse, found running wild in many places
E. ferus ¡V wild horse, includes the tarpan, E. ferus gmelini from eastern 
Europe & Russia, & Mongolian wild horse, E. ferus przewalskii of the 
Mongolian steppes. Other subspecies included E. ferus sylvaticus the forest 
horse of northern & central Europe, ancestor of our heavy draught breeds, 
and the tundra horse E. ferus alaskae of Siberia, which had some 
contribution to the Yakut ponies.

Classification 2
Equus caballus
E. przewalskii ¡V The true wild horses are included under this species.

Classification 3
All horses, domestic & wild, are included as separate subspecies under E. 
caballus. Hence the tarpan is E. caballus gmelini, Przewalski¡¦s is E. 
caballus przewalskii, & the northern horse is E. caballus sylvaticus.

So which one is most likely? My focus is on the tarpan here. Is it a 
subspecies of E. ferus, E. przewalskii, or E. caballus? And which ancestral 
stock did our domestic horses come from? Was there a population of wild E. 
caballus? If this is so, how about the supposed contribution of E. ferus to 
our modern horse breeds? Or is E. caballus merely descended from generations 
of selective breeding from the various populations of E. ferus? And just how 
much did the tarpan & Przewalskii¡¦s horse contribute to the formation of 
our domestic horses? I can summarise two scenarios:

1) Wild caballus experience variation, forming several different body sizes 
& forms. These form the basis of the several horse & pony ¡¥types¡¦ that are 
sometimes mentioned. These different ¡¥types¡¦ are then domesticated & 
cross-bred repeatedly, forming our domestic horse, from Shetland pony to 
Thoroughbred to Shire. Ferus horses make few if any contributions 
whatsoever.
2) Wild caballus are tamed, along with genes contributed from the tarpan and 
northern forest horse.
3) Ferus horses are tamed, and with the mixing of genes from the various 
subspecies, caballus is formed.
4) Ferus horses give rise to caballus. These caballus horses are then tamed.
5) Ferus horses are merely subspecies of caballus, and through repeated 
cross-breeding of these subspecies, domestic horses are formed.

Which one is generally accepted? I must really find a good equid specialist 
here¡K

In my personal opinion, I tend not to accept separating domestic animals 
from their wild brethren, especially when they¡¦re so similar to their 
ancestors. I heaved a sigh of relief when Canis familiaris the domestic dog 
was sunk into C. lupus the grey wolf. Similarly, I¡¦ve always tended to 
classify animals such as Capra hircus (goat) into C. aegagrus (wild goat or 
bezoar), Ovis aries (sheep) into O. orientalis (Asian mouflon), Bos taurus 
(cattle) into B. primigenius (aurochs), Equus asinus (donkey) into E. 
africanus (African wild ass), Sus domesticus (pig) into S. scrofa (wild 
boar), Felis catus (cat) into F. sylvestris (wild cat) and so on. My point 
of view is that these former species should be considered at best as 
subspecies of their ancestral species, especially since they have 
assimilated genes over time as they were domesticated in different parts of 
the world time and again. Does anyone agree with me here?

E. caballus is the problem here. Is it accepted that in the past there were 
wild herds of caballus roaming Eurasia, separate from the tarpan and 
Przewalski¡¦s horse? Or is caballus a purely artificial species, created as 
a result of centuries of selective breeding and hybridisation of the varioud 
ferus species? Or that the tarpan, Przewalski¡¦s horse and the other wild 
horses are true wild caballus?

11) I¡¦m a little confused as to the stratigraphy of the Pleistocene 
herbivores. Let¡¦s take bison for example. From what I¡¦ve gleaned, here¡¦s 
what I think I believe is the history of bison evolution:

The archaic bison, Bison priscus evolves in Eurasia. It crosses over the 
Bering into North America. It then evolves into B. latifrons, the 
long-horned bison, in North America, and the European bison or wisent, B. 
bonasus in Eurasia before becoming extinct. B. latifrons evolves further 
into B. antiquus and then goes extinct. And finally, B. antiquus evolves 
into the modern American bison, B. bison before it itself dies out.

How correct is this? Just how ancient is B. bison? I¡¦ve read somewhere that 
B. bison is perhaps the result of selection towards smaller, more timid 
animals after humans began killing off the largest, boldest B. antiquus. 
Could this be true? And exactly which species were likely to have met 
humans? Was there any overlap between the species eg. B. latifrons grazing 
with B. antiquus, B. priscus & B. antiquus, or B. priscus alongside B. 
bonasus? Or even more far-fetched, B. latifrons & B. bison together?

The same case here with the mammoths. The southern mammoth Mammuthus 
meridionalis, evolves in North Africa and spreads throughout the old world. 
It also crosses the Bering into the Americas, where it evolves into M. 
columbi, the Columbian mammoth (I believe that the Imperial mammoth M. 
imperator is considered to be the same as M. columbi, right?) In Eurasia, M. 
meridionalis evolves into the steppe mammoth, M. trogontherii. M. 
trogontherii further evolves into the most famous of them all, M. 
primigenius the woolly mammoth. This species soon spreads across northern 
Eurasia and northern North America. At some point in time, M. meridionalis & 
M. trogontherii go extinct. So we have here M. columbi, M. primigenius & the 
pygmy Channel Islands mammoth (M. exilis) to witness the arrival of humans. 
Therefore only these 3 species have the possibility of being wiped out 
partly by humankind, right?

Basically, the whole point of this super-long description here is about the 
high herbivore turnover. In merely 2 million years or so, we have had 5 
bison species, and 5 mammoth species evolve. And don¡¦t tell me about the 
Equus horses!!! It¡¦s incredible that alongside this amazingly high turnover 
rate & diversity among the herbivores, the carnivores remain relatively 
stable. Lions, leopards & spotted hyenas have been discovered in Olduvai 
Gorge alongside australopithecines, and the saber-toothed cats, canids & 
bears have also experienced relatively low turnover rate. Compare: 3 species 
of Smilodon, 2 species of Arctodus & 8 species of Canis (only 1 extinct, C. 
dirus) compared with the above examples.

Get my point here?

The question is, why is herbivore species turnover rate so high? Could it be 
selective pressure from the habitat, geographical isolation, predation & 
climate? The carnivores were subject to the same pressures (except for 
predation for the larger species), but why is their species diversity 
relatively low compared to the herbivores? Maybe they didn¡¦t need to evolve 
that much as long as there was prey to catch, regardless of the species.

**************************************************************************************

I know I¡¦ve asked a lot of questions here, and I understand that not many 
will be answered, especially since this list is focused on dinosaurs. But I 
hope that there are those of you with the answers to at least some of my 
questions.



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