Re: dromaeosaur hunting strategies

[Mike Taylor <mike@seatbooker.net>]

> Date: Wed, 21 Aug 2002 15:11:33 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Stephan Pickering <stefanpickering2002@yahoo.com>
>
> I cannot fathom how a ~wolf-sized Velociraptor could hunt by itself
> when prey was larger than itself.

What makes you think its prey was larger than itself?

Animals that take prey lagher than themselves are not uncommon.  A
brief smaple: the cougar, the peacock bass, the deep sea gulper eel,
the spotted-tailed quoll (a biggish marsupial), the tiger, the killer
whale, the short-tailed shrew, various snakes ... I could go on, but
you get the point.  I'm not aware that any of these are pack hunters.

> Among dinosaurs (extant and, presumably, pre-K/T), lateralization of
> visual projections and behaviours is the result of the embryo being
> exposed to light before hatching. Thus, polymorphism of prey is the
> first cognitive problem a lateralized theropod brain would grapple
> with.

I'm sorry, I didn't quite follow that?

> I do not believe I could out-run a dromaeosaur, but it is
> conceivable ornithomimids could outrun a dromaeosaur, and I cannot
> see a solitary dromaeosaur attacking a hadrosaur larger than a bus.

But you can see it attacking a _Protoceratops_ about the same size as,
well, as a _Velociraptor_ :-)  Among many other places, see
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hall/2099/fightprpage.html
No evidence of pack-hunting in that instance.

> In some ways, then, our minds are still "cinematic" inspired (as
> Victor Hugo said, "Inspiration is the imagination with an
> e*****tion").

Emigration?  Encryption?  Escalation?  Estimation?  Evacuation?
Evaluation?  Exaltation?  Excavation?  Excitation?  Exhaustion?
Exhibition?  Expedition?  Expiration?  Exposition?  Extinction?
Extraction?  Exultation?  Enquiring minds want to know!

> How does one configure the geometry of imaginary faces?

How indeed.

> I would further argue that for a lone dromaeosaur to
> "grapple-and-slash" could result in its death from the very prey it
> is struggling with.

Well, that's the risk that all active predators run.  Doesn't seem to
stop 'em surviving as species.

 _/|_    _______________________________________________________________
/o ) \/  Mike Taylor   <mike@miketaylor.org.uk>   www.miketaylor.org.uk
)_v__/\  Zenophobia, n. -- the irrational fear of convergent sequences.