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

[Jack <jconrad@lib.drury.edu>]

On Sun, 29 Mar 1998, Larry Dunn wrote:

> 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.

I also thought it was relatively rare in mammals for members of the same
species to kill each other as adults, but then we have "Sue" and a couple
of other theropods which seem to have been killed thusly.  Also, what is
your stand on the possibility of an allosaur attacking a sauropod?  Also,
I know that there is a pride of lions in central or northern Africa which
specializes in taking down elephants and have even taken adults which
weigh up to 20 times as much as the average pride member (there's a great
new pictoral out, I could probably get the ref.).  Also, African hunting
dogs take wildebeest many times their size and occasionally lose a member
in doing so. What is the likelihood that dromies moved in packs?  What is
the likelihood that such a pack (or flock, or pride) could have sustained
itself on only small kills?  Bobcats are specialized small game hunters
which usually hunt alone aren't they?  

Cape buffalo group together to attack single or small groups of lions for
reasons which are not clear.  It seems likely, though, that there is an
instinct to do so to reduce the likelihood of predation (through the
removal of predators). Often, a cape buffalo or lion(s) may be killed in
this type of exchange.  Could the tenontosaurid and _Deinonychus_ site
have been something similar?  

There are numerous viable possibilities for the situation without
resorting to making comparisons with beetles predating elephants.   

> > 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. 

Some bacteria kill and eat humans.