Re: Cursorial adaptations (was T.rex and elephants)

[Chris Campbell <sankarah@ou.edu>]

Dinogeorge@aol.com wrote:
> 
> In a message dated 97-10-05 07:09:48 EDT, jwoolf@erinet.com writes:
> 
> << So maybe we could reasonably envision a scenario something like this:
>  Short-frills spar with horns at mating time -- an active method of
>  settling conflicts.  Because of the potential for serious injury to both
>  parties, this isn't a very good method of settling disputes.  So, over
>  time the long-frills develop so that the active conflict can be replaced
>  by less direct passive conflicts of displays.  Whoever has the most
>  impressive display wins.  Only in two very well matched individuals
>  would the old method of active combat come into play. >>
> 
> Except that frills evolved >before< horns, so the displaying occurred even
> when there weren't any horns. This suggests that the horns evolved to settle
> disputes when the frill displays weren't sufficient...

Or, alternately, that the darn peacocks just kept getting eaten and they
needed to do something about that!  :)

Chris