Re: T rex bites your bum

["Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>]

Phil Bigelow (bigelowp@juno.com) wrote:

<I read this "following strategy" all the time (Horner, Abler, Bakker, Curie
have repeated this for years), but what is the original source for the info?  I
agree that Komodo Dragon teeth are efficient innoculation devices, and I agree
that infection from bites is a frequent mode of death for Komodo prey items,
but is it really true that a Komodo will spend days following a *specific*
infected individual?>

  Conversely, large animals locked in struggle until one is dead is a romantic,
and rather mammalian, argument. It is about as deadly to hang and and keep at
it in a struggle to the predator as to the prey, and many lions can die from
attacking prey their own size or larger, and thus tend to kill by attrition and
isolation and exhaustion rather than infliction of numbers of mortal wounds.
The same is true of wolves. Many reptiles and even many aquatic predators lack
the energetics to retain engagement and thus inflict an injury in a critical
area or deliver a toxin, then follow the prey. This is done by monitors,
snakes, and even sharks. I've even seen birds "peck" at their food, following
the struggling prey until it's dead, all the while inflicting occassional jabs
at it; secretary birds like leopards just hold on until the prey stops
struggling, but they are usually larger than their food.

  As for anecdotes of Komodo's, many of these author's views on the infliction
then wait strategy tend to more detail the Komodo as an example of a common
predatory technique than simply using just the Komodo as the dinosaur
equivalent.

  Cheers,

Jaime A. Headden

  Little steps are often the hardest to take.  We are too used to making leaps 
in the face of adversity, that a simple skip is so hard to do.  We should all 
learn to walk soft, walk small, see the world around us rather than zoom by it.

"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)


                
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