Re: The flaws of

[David Hill <daveyohill@earthlink.net>]

>From Noel Hill

Well, it's great to hear what you think about my arguments.
        First of all, A pouncing Deinonychus should not be compared to a
chameleon.  Chameleons are equipped with stereoscopic vision and the
patience to be able to wait and line up their shot.  I'm sure you remember
those neat little eyes that they have right?  Well when those eyes line up
with it's target that is when the strike is expected.  This is highly
different from jumping on a little animal with all that adrenaline rushing.
Chameleon are not propelling their bodies and calculating their landing.
You really should have compared deinonychus to a gibbon or
spider-monkey,...Oh wait, they would be smart animals!

        Deinonychus was always losing teeth!  This is evident.  We have
skulls that show us the new teeth growing in place of old ones, plus we
find teeth scattered in tenontosaurs!  Was deinonychus really that worried
about losing teeth?  Secondly, deinonychus was not well equipped for
forward-pointing bites as a "furball-hunting podikosaur" would have
executed to catch a rodent or marsupial.  Deinonychus didn't have that
forward projecting neck that was needed to make those extra precise
strikes.  Could you picture a deinonychus running after a small animal and
shooting it's head down, while running?  Ceolophisis was perfect for this.
then again, d.'s strike would have been different than C.  Deinonychus
would have reached past the target and pulled back so that it may hook it's
prey.  This procedure would have required a podokisaur-neck.

        It's obvious that deinonychus had some type of social structure and
that they ate together who's to say that they didn't kill their prey
together.  People are so worried about assuming things, where would we be
today if we didn't assume.  Dinosaurs would still be in swamps, Iguanodon
would still be up like a kangaroo, The Carnegie diplododus would be
confined to trenches and so on.  I'm sure that all of the preceding
examples sounded like "Fantasy" at the time.  Deinonychus is different
though.  We have evidence that it was equipped to hunt prey larger than
itself!  There is a good chance that deinonychus was smart enough to do so.
I'm sick of people confining dinosaurs to being blindingly stupid.  There
are so many examples of animals that were dumber than deinonychus and still
worked together to kill prey. Here's a list: Crows will attack a larger
bird in mid air(I can verify this with a video-tape),  Crocodiles will
attack the same wilderbeast while the animal attempts to cross a river,
Buzzards will swarm over a week or young large mammal.  Falsevampire-bats
will work in pairs to kill a mouse, I'm naming only the animals that were
dumber than deinonychus and there are even more!  My point is, science is
based on hypothesis and you gradually work to prove your statement.

        Deinonychus's brain was about the size of a macaw's brain.  Macaws
are fairly smart birds with the ability to learn quickly.  If you apply
macaw brain capabilities to a predatory animal, you could have a fairly
smart hunter I'm not saying that deinonychus is comparable to a wolf (maybe
a Chihuahua).  But it does not take that much smarts to work up a frenzy.
Some scientist believe that wolves display more intelligence while hunting
alone than they do while hunting a large prey in a group.  The reason for
this is that whenever a wolf hunts in a pack, usually one wolf picks the
victem while the others will work themselves into a killing frenzy to bring
the animal down.  Solitary hunting requires more intellect because every
bite has to count and you must anticipate the preys next move and counter
it.
        I have to cut this email off here because my Iguana is eating my
spider-plant. (Spike is much dumber than a deinonychus)

Sincerely, Noel

P.S. I was referring to "RE: The Absurdity, The Absurdity, (was:WUSSY
RAPTORS}".  That was what I wanted you to respond to.

Davey O'

"I've been pushed to the brink of the precipice and dared not to blink"
Mark Heard