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

[Jeffrey Martz <martz@holly.ColoState.EDU>]

> They were not
> so adapted for cursorial pursuit as modern cheetahs, but so what?  Their
> prey, which may have included such genera as _Edmontosaurus_ and
> _Triceratops_, were NOT gazelles!  

     Exactly.  T.rex probably didn't HAVE to run terribly fast to catch
decent sized prey.

> I now direct you to illustration 6-5 on page 144 of Gregory S. Paul's
> _Predatory Dinosaurs of the World_: "What _Tyrannosaurus rex_ would have
> looked like if it had been the slow, elephantine animal some think it was."
>  If that's your view of _T.rex_, I give up.

     Thats nobody's veiw of T.rex.  Refer to Tom Holtze's posting for a
nice summary of the points and implications of Farlow's paper.  The
T.rex-elephant correlation has to do exclusively with mass and the
resultant hazards of falling, particularly at high speeds, not running
design.  

LN Jeff
O-