Re: Giant carnivorous geese

[randin@tartarus.uwa.edu.au (Ramon Andinach)]

> Re:  gastroliths
> 
> I'd thought the function of gastroliths was to grind up plant materials
> while a slow process of leaching out nutrients continued.  The food was not
> very nutritious.
> What use would a carnivore have for this process?  Any excreta evidence?
> The only reason that comes to mind is processing bone.
> Thanks.
> 
Given that we seem to have moved onto dinosaurs here, I could
think of a few other things.

I would imagine that digesting skin could make good use of these.
Larger animals tend to thicker, tougher skin and to get to flesh or internal
organs you have to deal with this. I can easily see skin requiring a bit of 
extra processing to get full digestive value.

Secondly, given the difference between the amount of effort we need to deal
with adult beef compared to calf (veal) (similarly for mutton and lamb), any
carnivore lucky enough to land itself an aged sauropod would probably find
grinding useful.

Remembering that the cooking we do makes it easier to deal with meat, and 
even then we still do a lot of grinding. A carnivorous dinosaur wouldn't have
the teeth to do this, so gastroliths could easily be really useful.
 
ramon andinach.