Re: Gastric stones of dinosaurs were not for milling food !

[David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

> Heh.  _Average_ 4 bites per minute. For 10 hours. No chewing time figured 
> in. Chewing takes a _long_ time.

> [BTW-- cows don't really chew

They do -- just later.

> Open mouth-- 1 sec. Inhale leaf cluster-- 1 sec. Close mouth-- 1 sec. Pull 
> head back to "strip'-- 1 sec. Swallow-- 1 sec. That is 12 bites per minute

As I said: much more than 4 bites per minute.

> and doesn't not include time spent moving to a new stand, locating the 
> next mouthful, or pre-positioning of head. I think to meet these numbers, 
> even temporarily, is extraordinarily difficult in realistic scenarios re 
> abundance and quality of vegetation.

At average sauropod size you're way beyond the point where, according to 
Marx, quantity changes into quality and... ;-) Seriously: the bigger an 
animal and the longer its gut, the worse the quality of food it can afford 
to live off. If cows can afford to live off grass, surely sauropods can 
afford living off conifer needles? Let alone fern or cycad fronds.

> Do you really think they can average 8 bites per minute over the course of 
> a day?

Of course. I repeat: with these mouthparts they didn't chew.