Re: sauropod breeding

[Tommy Tyrberg <tommy.tyrberg@norrkoping.mail.telia.com>]

> Sure, but that's also where the live mass curve gets interesting.  As
> long as there are significant dips in the supply, the predator
> population limit is constrained to be less than a population able to eat
> all the available juveniles, provided the sauropod population is the
> principal food supply.

A wild conjecture. Since sauropods were presumably very long-lived could 
they have used the same breeding strategy as e. g. cicadas or bamboo, i e 
synchronized breeding at long intervals thus "swamping" predators with a 
vast number of young but leaving lean pickings inbetween breeding episodes? 
To judge from the cicadas a prime number of years (11, 13, 17, 19) is best 
since it cannot be tracked by any shorter periodicity.

Tommy Tyrberg