RE: PACK HUNTING THEROPODS

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

Nathan Myhrvold says: 

>There is no evidence for this proposition in several ways:
>
>-  Many species of vertebrate predators are social living, ranging from
>European badgers to the more famous examples of wolves and lions.   
They
>span nearly the full range of vertebrate predator sizes and 
intellegence
>ranges.

All of the terrestrial forms you mentioned are mammals with a high 
degree of intelligence.

>-  There is no evidence that solitary vertebrate predators are any less
>intellegent than social or group living/group hunting species.

Intelligence is required for pack hunting; the fact that it's not an 
inevitable result is irrelevant.
 
>I don't mean to be rude, but your answer  is incorrect on every basis:

Oh my!

>-  There is nothing that prevents vertebrates from having a similar 
social
>arrangement. Group living in a manner highly similar to the eusocial 
insects
>has been reported for several vertebrate species, notably the naked 
mole
>rat. 

All naked mole rats aside, do you feel that it's more instructive in 
reconstructing the lives of dromaeosaurs that we analogize between 
extant vertebrate predators and dromaeosaurs or between insects and 
dromaeosaurs?

>-   It is true that eusocial insects are highly related to one another.
>This explains the evolutionary MOTIVATION for extreme degree of 
cooperation
>to evolve.   You have to separate two issues - the evolutionary 
motivation
>that would lead to cooperative hunting, which is one issue, and the 
level of
>intellegence (cognitive ability) required to get "cooperation" in 
hunting
>and foraging.  

And what result obtained in the development of cooperation in two cases:  
lions and ants?  

Lions took advantage of their ability to cooperate cognitively by doing 
just that.  

Ants, unable to develop cooperation through such means, "cooperate" by 
specializing by function (soldier ants, worker ants, royalty), a 
hallmark of hive insects, each pursuing a specific role within the hive.  
They have no identity, even much less so than non-hive insects, outside 
of their role in the hive.  Such is the result of real cooperation 
without intelligence.

What sort of true cooperation do we recognize at work in dromaeosaurs, 
presumed to be relatively unintelligent animals?  Were there worker 
dromaeosaurs, soldier dromaeosaurs, queens breeding them all?   

>  Their overall social structure IS
>different, but that is a separable issue.  

Well, I must say I think that this assertion is completely 
unsupportable,  for the reasons given above.

>Therepods that are sufficiently related could indeed have made 
"altrusitic"
>sacrafices for one another.   So called "selfish genes" can make for
>apparently altruistic phenotypes. This effect is independent of the 
degree
>of intellegence of the creatures involved.

I cannot think of a single example of a vertebrate of less than 
mammalian intelligence showing this sort of altrusim.  Can you provide 
one please?

> Schooling fish, most behaviors
>of ants and many other animal behaviors are the COLLECTIVE result of
>INDIVIDUAL algorithms.   What appears to be highly orchestrated - has 
no
>score, and no composer.  Instead it is what happens when a bunch of
>individuals following the same set of rules get together.

Precisely!  A shark which appears to "herd" schools of fish along with 
other sharks  would still attack its prey with or without the presence 
of the other sharks, correct? 

So: Would a solitary Deinonychus hop up on Tenontosaurus regardless of 
the presence or absence of other Deinonychus?  This puts the lie to the 
idea of collective result/individual algorithm in this case.

>There are differences between the social behavior of lions and oras, 
but
>that example does not make the point.  

Please elaborate.

Larry

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