RE: Biomechanics

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@geol.umd.edu>]

Title: RE: Biomechanics

From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu [mailto:owner-dinosaur@usc.edu]On Behalf Of Valla Bernhardt

-----Original Message-----
From:   John Clavin [SMTP:jclavin@microsoft.com]
Sent:   Tuesday, September 07, 1999 5:33 AM
To:     'gbabcock@best.com'; dinosaur@usc.edu
Subject:        RE: Biomechanics
As a final thought - how could a creature have been successful if it had a
significant risk of death every time it sprinted after it's dinner?
"Nature" doesn't design things that badly.

Is there a consensus on whether _T.Rex_ actually sprinted for its dinner?  Last I heard (and I'm admittedly out of the loop on such things) there was debate over active hunting vs. scavenging (sp).

thanks
-val

 

Well, the debate consists of, on one camp, Jack Horner (who considers tyrannosaurids as being incapable of regularly taking down prey) and on the other camp, just about everybody else (who considers tyrannosaurids to have both hunted for food and eaten carrion).

 

This subject has been done (to death?) on the list before, so you might want to check the dinosaur list archives and/or postings on www.dinosauria.com on the subject to hear the major arguments on all sides.

                Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                Vertebrate Paleontologist
Department of Geology           Director, Earth, Life & Time Program
University of Maryland          College Park Scholars
                College Park, MD  20742      
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/tholtz.htm
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