Re: Alvarezsaurs, their snout,myrmecophages and woodpeckers

[Ronald Orenstein <ornstn@rogers.com>]

At 05:53 PM 19/09/02 +0000, Brian Lauret wrote:

> Hi y'all
> There's something that always puzzles me.Maybe it's just me being silly 
> but I wonder: Is it realistic to illustrate all of those myrmecophagous 
> (except Rapator perhaps,it seems a bit to large for such a diet) 
> alvarezsaurs with snouts just like typical theropods while all living 
> myrmecophages (with the exception of aardwolf,sloth bear and marsupial 
> anteater,wich seem to be pretty primitive in their specialisation 
> anyway)have their jaws stuck for the greatest part in a sort of skin 
> presumably to create a tube for the tongue.Surely alvarezsaurs have been 
> around for a long time so they surely had the timeframe to evolve into 
> specialised myrmecophages.

Actually, I think it is quite realistic to illustrate them in this way, 
because although there are many birds that specialize in eating ants, none 
of them have a tube-like mouth.  In fact, not all ant-eating mammals do 
either (the numbat of Australia is an example).

> And regarding animals with these diets,i wish to mention I think 
> woodpeckers are the avian equivalent of animals like pangolins and 
> anteaters. It seems strange to me we only used to have those big-ass 
> woodpeckers like the Ivorybill in regions without large myrmecophagous 
> mammals (in such relatively ant-less regions flight might be a nessecary 
> equipment for myrmecophages of this scale)and small woodpeckers in areas 
> that do have those while the largest members of a particular birdclade are 
> usually the tropical ones.Woodpeckers do have those extremely long tongues 
> and such..........just a thought.
> Correct me if I'm wrong.

Well, I'm sorry to say this, but you are wrong.  Ant-eating birds coexist 
with ant-eating mammals in many parts of the world; for example, flickers 
coexist with ant eaters in South America, many species of woodpecker 
coexist with pangolins in Southeast Asia, and the Australian treecreepers, 
some of which are ant specialists, coexist with the numbat in Australia.


--
Ronald I. Orenstein                           Phone: (905) 820-7886
International Wildlife Coalition              Fax/Modem: (905) 569-0116
1825 Shady Creek Court
Mississauga, Ontario, Canada L5L 3W2          mailto:ornstn@rogers.com