Re: GANGING CROWS & LIZARDS

["Patrick Norton" <ptnorton@email.msn.com>]

>Yes.  However, the animals for which the term "pack" was invented (wolves,
for example) are more than simply a bunch of conspecifics who band together
to bring down a larger prey item: it is an association of (mostly) kin, the
hunt itself involves a lot of signalling, and *it persists outside the time
of the hunting and feeding event*.  A pack as a structure exists during
"down time".>

I think an important question for this list is how could the paleontological
record distinguish between cooperative pack hunting, opportunistic gang
hunting or simple mass scavenging?  How could a paleontologist 70 million
years from now distinguish differences in group behavior between a fossil
record that preserved a feeding frenzy of sharks from a wolf pack at a kill?