Re: How Sauropods Got So Big

[don ohmes <d_ohmes@yahoo.com>]

--- On Sat, 3/28/09, Raptorial Talon <raptorialtalon@gmail.com> wrote:

> IIRC, those suckers were something like 9-12 feet long and
> a couple
> hundred pounds in weight. Quite a respectable source of
> protein for a
> big predator.
> 
> Incidentally, is that spinosaur paper basically saying that
> that they
> were like herons from hell? That's the impression I
> got.

Even a single spinosaurid was big enough to 'muddy-up'* a fairly large water 
body; a very effective way of obtaining fish in shallow bodies of stagnant or 
slow-moving water, and something long jaws and conical teeth would be 
well-suited for.

Perhaps large lungfish would be merely forced to the surface(?), but would 
still be easy pickings. [Actually, even sauropods were _theoretically_ capable 
of obtaining fish in this manner, given a shallow pond w/ a silty bottom.]

Hmmm. Wonder if the Nile Perch was present; now there's a mouthful...

*Definition -- to raise enough silt off of the bottom to clog the local water 
column, at which point gilled creatures that can't escape to clear water pass 
out (hypoxia), often floating belly-up.