Feasting on large dead animals... Re: Suchomimus Photos Posted Online

[Dinosaur Interplanetary Gazette <dinosaur@dinosaur.org>]

The only problem with the idea of one animal lasting for a long time is... 
well.... refrigeration.

Under normal primitive circumstances yer average animal rots in about a day. 
Not to mention various other animals and insects that might also be interested 
in the stinky old carcass as well.

This is one of the reasons that hunters all the way up to the middle of the 
20th century killed lots and lots of animals on game expeditions: they had to 
eat them that day because otherwise the meat would spoil. So they had to shoot 
more animals the next day. Didn't matter how big the animal was or how hungry 
the hunters... no portable iceboxes.

ES

Steve Brusatte wrote:SNIPPED

Believe it or not, the meat from one Brachiosaurus 'teenager' would have been 
more than enough to feed on Allosaur for an entire year (not to mention the 
larger T. rex if it was living when Brachiosaurus was alive).

>
> Furthermore, I recall a short humorous blurb in the Complete Dinosaur, 
> written by Brett-Surman and Farlow, about how many lawyers it would take to 
> feed a T. rex for an entire year.  If rex was an endotherm, it would take 292 
> lawyers.  If he was an ectotherm, the number would be 73.
>
> What I'm trying to say is that Suchomimus would not need to kill that many 
> fish to keep its energy level up.  These fish were likely 7-10 feet long and 
> weighed several hundred pounds.  Just estimating, based on Farlow and 
> Brett-Surman's lawyer estimates, it would take probably about 200-210 fish 
> for an endothermic Suchomimus and 60-65 fish for an ecothermic Suchomimus.  
> This means that Suchomimus wouldn't even need to hunt every day, much less 
> live in the water.
>
> Who knows, though, this could all be meaningless.  After all, lawyer meat is 
> not very nutritious!
>
> Steve
>
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