Re: The absurdity, the absurdity (was: Cooperating theropods?)

["Larry Dunn" <larrydunn@hotmail.com>]

sankarah wrote:

>> No, _not_ the same.  Chris, you're arguing in generalities.  Just 
look at the animals, OK?  
>
>Yes, I am arguing in generalities, because dromaeosaurs differ from
>modern predators in even the most general means imaginable.  Compared 
to
>a dromaeosaur, cats and dogs have an awful lot in common -- that was my
>only point.

So: They were different from, say. cats and dogs in even the most 
general means imaginable.  Therefore they hunted in packs,  just as so 
many felids and canids do?

>Which, again, is why I said "perhaps" and "might".  We don't know, and
>that means theories of pack hunting and preferred prey should not be
>dismissed out of turn because we can't find a modern analog.  We simply
>have no idea.

But we do have an idea.  We do have modern pack hunters, and 
dromaeosaurs, as you point out,  are nothing like them.  We do have good 
evidence of the possible true usage of the sickle claw, from a 
fossilized animal pair (probably: repeated piercing of the neck around 
the carotids), which evidence you have "dismissed out of turn" as a 
silly velociraptor who just wasn't thinking.  

(Let's keep in mind that we're not discussing "theories" here -- this is 
all firmly in the realm of hypothesis.)

Once again, you can't assert that the sickle claw means all bets are 
off, and then sit down with a fossil sickle claw in your hand and start 
hypothesizing about predation.  Why not?  Well, if all bets are off, if 
all analogies to extant animals are inapposite, then what on *earth* are 
you using to form your brave new assumptions?

Larry

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