Re: Sloping terrain Re: Woman against Abelisaur

[Don Ohmes <d_ohmes@yahoo.com>]

On 7/24/2011 8:54 AM, Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. wrote:

> I don't buy the idea that ANY dinosaur is forbidden from particular
> terrain (except perhaps for excessively swampy)  because of the
> topography.

The original point I made stems from the fact that sloping ground is not 
recommended when considering where to site an ostrich/emu farm -- the 
reason is not that the birds fall down when they are just walking 
around, but that sloping ground makes a tumble at the higher speeds they 
will naturally sometimes attain both more likely, and likely more serious.

So I would not say the large bipedal predators were barred from sloping 
and/or rough ground, but they certainly would have been at unusual risk 
when charging around, whether the target be a young woman or something 
more realistic. Hence not a prime hunting ground, hence not good 
habitat, hence relatively "abelisaurid-free".

> After all, proboscideans like mammoths and mastodons made
> their way up into the Appalachians, and they were arguably less well
> adapted in terms of their limb design to steep surfaces.

If you are comparing quadrupedal dinosaurs to quad mammals, I have no 
comment -- but quadrupedal locomotion is inherently much more stable 
than bipedal, even though it seems to currently be a common 
misconception amongst the dominant bipeds on the planet that the reverse 
is true.

I blame the automobile for that, personally. :)

Extant quads of all sizes regularly go where humans cannot without using 
their hands, in both steep and boggy terrain -- and theropods arms were 
too short to use as helpful third and fourth points of contact. Or even 
as a timely push on the knee when moving up a steep slope. So theropods 
were limited in ways humans are not.

There is still some logging done with elephants done in mountainous 
jungle in SE Asia -- what a great (and likely ephemeral) opportunity to 
research the locomotion of large quads in steep and muddy terrain.

The results will provide some nice insight into the ways bipedal and 
quadrupedal dinosaurs would have naturally tended to partition terrain.

As it is -- "Elephant Siam 1925" and "Myanmar logging elephant" are 
searches that bring up informative video, especially relative to another 
misconception, again common, that large quad animals must avoid soft 
ground. There is also opportunity to watch unburdened humans and loaded 
elephants moving simultaneously up sloping terrain.

Also -- I again urge DML listers who have any interest whatsoever in 
this to go into steep or swampy terrain as obligate bipeds (in other 
words, no hands allowed, period) -- how far you DON'T get before you 
have to put your hands down is informative as to what the larger 
theropods could do and ABSOLUTELY COULD NOT do.