Arboreality & climbing crocs

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <th81@umail.umd.edu>]

To add (?) to the discussion of climbing crocs:

Arboreality does NOT mean "able to get into trees", or even "able to climb
easily".  It means "specifically adapted to a life in which a major
proportion of time is spent living in the trees".

Goats climb trees, but they are hardly arboreal.

To mammalian ecologists, for example, most species of squirrels and cats are
not arboreal, they are simply "scansorial": able to climb habitually, but
spend a majority of their time on the ground.

Perhaps some of the early bird debate stems from people being *very* loose
with the term "arboreal".

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Vertebrate Paleontologist     Webpage: http://www.geol.umd.edu
Dept. of Geology              Email:tholtz@geol.umd.edu
University of Maryland        Phone:301-405-4084
College Park, MD  20742       Fax:  301-314-9661