Re: Great White Shark hunting techniques

[JCMcL <darwincr@laplaza.taos.nm.us>]

On Tue, 23 Jan 1996, Mickey Rowe wrote:

> 
> Robert.J.Meyerson@uwrf.edu (Rob Meyerson) writes:
> 
> > Many people suggest that _T. rex_ hunting style may be similar to a
> > great white shark: a quick run in, make a huge bite, then wait for
> > the animal to weaken enough so it can safely move in to dispatch
> > it's prey.
> 
> According to an article I read a year or two ago in _American
> Scientist_, that's not quite the way that Great Whites attack, at
> least not when eating their preferred prey (pinnipeds).  Many hours of
> observation of beaches in the Pacific Northwest region of the
> U.S. indicate that the sharks typically find a pinniped (don't know if
> the sharks care whether or not that's a diphyletic assemblage ;-) near
> the surface of the water, grab it from below and bite down hard as
> they descend back into the depths.  As they descend they leave a trail
> of blood, and their prey dies due to this rapid exsanguination
> (i.e. loss of blood).  The sharks will then release the animal,
> allowing its now dead body to float back to the surface where the
> shark will return to feed on it.
> 
> I don't think this method of feeding would work for a terrestrial
> animal.  

> Mickey Rowe     (rowe@lepomis.psych.upenn.edu)
> 
Oh, but it would.  Sauropods fed by reaching down with their long necks 
to the treetops whilst floating above them.  At such times, large 
carnivorous dinosaurs sometimes leaped into the air and punctured the 
giants with their teeth, thus letting the amassed hydrogen out so that 
the sauropods FWOOSHED about briefly like titanic balloons before 
settling to earth to be devoured at last.  

John McLoughlin