Re: T.Rex Feather Skepticism

[frank bliss <frank@blissnet.com>]

This goes back a few thoughts.

Didn't know that but are the zooplankton strictly the predatory 
pressure on the phytoplankton?  I doubt it and at such a base trophic 
level even the zooplankton are predated upon by others so really they 
are prey too.  I was looking more for a terrestrial analogue of 
predator biomass exceeding prey biomass in a surviving viable 
community.  Whether or not this trophic structure could succeed in 
"higher" animals is in doubt in my mind.  Certainly the numbers of 
predatory dinosaurs were far less than their herbivore counterparts.  
The biomass of triceratops in my Hell Creek collections if properly 
reflected by teeth survivorship had to be huge were there are many 
fewer predator teeth to find.  I still believe that any viable 
ecosystem of animals larger than peas that there has to be a larger 
biomass of prey than predator.
Frank (Rooster) Bliss
MS Biostratigraphy
Weston, Wyoming

On Sep 15, 2005, at 2:53 PM, David Marjanovic wrote:

> > Are there actual examples of this or is it a theoretical exercise?
>
> In some marine ecosystems there is more zooplankton than phytoplankton.

The prey will always out biomass the predator.  There are always 
diminishing returns up the trophic web.  That is why the movie "Raptor 
Island" was so bad...an island covered in veloceraptors with no prey 
animals.  Canabalism would rule the roost and the population would 
diminish rapidly.
Frank (Rooster) Bliss
MS Biostratigraphy
Weston, Wyoming


> > Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2005 19:05:33 -0700
> > From: "T. Michael Keesey" <keesey@gmail.com>
> >
> > Sure, a full-grown _T. rex_ is very large; but they aren't that
> > numerous.  Think of it this way: if you piled up the fur of all the
> > grizzly bears in North America in one pile and the fur of all the
> > rabbits in North America in another pile, which pile would be
> > bigger?