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

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

From: "Allan Edels" <edels@email.msn.com>

>    Concerning the comments about the 3 or 4 _Deinonychus_ found with a
>_Tenontosaurus_:  It is not impossible that the _Tenontosaurus_ was 
unlucky
>enough  to stumble onto a large pack of _Deinonychus_ - possibly 2 or 
three
>competing packs - then it was brought down by all the packs - who then
>fought over the possession of the carcass - This would be when the
>_Deinonychus_'s died. 

This is too elaborate a construction for my taste.

Subsititute modern animals for these and see how you feel about the
scenario; let's use a moose for the tenontosaur and bobcats for the 
deinonychus.  

Try to imagine it.  Dozens of frenzied bobcats hurling themselves at 
the beseiged moose . . . only to turn on each other once they've
 brought the moose down.  I just can't see it.

> The fact is - _Tenontosaurus_ meat seems to have been
>a real favorite of _Deinonychus_ - and  a few other Dromeosaurs. (based 
on
>teeth found associated with _Tenontosaurus_).

But that doesn't prove anything about predation.  I'm sure there are
species of carrion beetle that just love elephant flesh. But, to the 
best
of my knowledge, no aggregation of intrepid beetles can bring 
down an elephant. 

>    The truth is that pack hunting animals often lose members of the 
pack
>while hunting especially the young ones, just learning to hunt and 
kill.

Why, I'd have to disagree.  

Pack hunting animals rarely lose a pack member because they are 
not suicidal.  There's plenty of flesh to sustain the pack or it 
wouldn't
 inhabit the econiche in the first place.  Plenty of small, manageable
 herbs.  Plenty of young of the bigger herbs.  Plenty of sick herbs. The 
occasional herb keels over -- free lunch.   If  those copious supplies
 run low,  then they may take a crack at a  larger healthy animal, but 
with great caution even when in extremis.  And "larger" still has a 
rational
ceiling, even in  those extreme cases.  Meercats (cooperative 
hunters) will not attack a gazelle no matter how hungry
 they are.  Why?  Because they're not frigging nuts.

Sometimes pack animals get killed trying to take down a prey
 animal. But three?  No way.  Usually it's more a matter of one 
animal getting injured and dying later. And, incidentally,  young 
animals very rarely  die in pack feeding events.  They work 
their way into an active slot *very* gradually, another example 
of the pack's playing very cautiously with its own numbers.
  
>And - we certainly will never know if other _Tenontosaurus_'s were 
involved
>without lots of footprints from the same site (which I assume were not
>found).

I don't understand the point.

>  The absurdity would be to assume that this was a typical kill site,
>and not some extraordinary occurance.

The absurdity is to assume that this is a kill site at all.

Larry

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