RE: Snowmastodons

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@umd.edu>]

> From: Anthony Docimo [mailto:keenir@hotmail.com] 
> 
> > > > This week's NOVA on PBS, "Ice Age Death Trap" is about the 
> > > > mastodon-intensive fossil fauna collected up at Snowmass, 
> > > > Colorado, this past year.
> > > > 
> > > > (Sadly, my on-screen guide describes it this way: 
> > > Archaeologists study
> > > > the life and death of North America's most exotic and extreme
> > > > creatures.) B-(
> > > 
> > > well yes - native camels and elephants...in a predator-free 
> > > enviroment.
> > 
> > Predator free?!?! Not so much: Smilodon, Arctodus, 
> Panthera, Canis, etc.
> 
> the documentary said there were no predator bones in the 
> deposits. (as opposed to the La Brea Tar Pits, where trapped 
> herbivores lure carnivores to die there with them)

Well, I sincerely doubt that any spot in North America in the Rancholabrean was 
"predator free". I don't see the Front Range as
allowing for Megalonyx to hike up there, but not big cats, dogs, and bears.

The Snowmass site is probably simply showing something closer to the actual 
predator-prey ratios (buttloads of herbivores, rare
predators), as opposed to the predator trap of La Brea.

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Email: tholtz@umd.edu   Phone: 301-405-4084
Office: Centreville 1216                        
Senior Lecturer, Vertebrate Paleontology
Dept. of Geology, University of Maryland
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/
Fax: 301-314-9661               

Faculty Director, Science & Global Change Program, College Park Scholars
http://www.geol.umd.edu/sgc
Fax: 301-314-9843

Mailing Address:        Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                        Department of Geology
                        Building 237, Room 1117
                        University of Maryland
                        College Park, MD 20742 USA