Re: Built Like a Race Horse, Slow as an Elephant?

[Graydon <oak@uniserve.com>]

On Mon, Jan 15, 2007 at 03:44:40PM +0100, evelyn sobielski scripsit:
> While basically correct, Dawkins is once again getting carried away throwing
> too many things into one pot. It works like that in short/medium chase
> one-on-one encounters (or some cases thereof, lynxes/bobcats for example.
> Cheetahs, it don't; they have gone great lengths in evolution to be able to
> outrun anything which seems a bit pointless if L/D held true in their case).

Cheetahs probably evolved as pronghorn antelope predators in Pliestocene NorAm,
and it looks very much like there was a cheetah/pronghorn arms race for speed.

Why there was that arms race, and why there are cheetahs in Africa, are pretty
interesting questions.

Something we might get due to differential preservation or discovery of
dinosaur fossils; if all we've got is the "cheetah", and no "pronghorn", it's
not necessarily going to make paleo-ecological sense to us.

-- Graydon