Re: Brontornis again

[Betty Cunningham <bettyc@flyinggoat.com>]

The marrow-eating hominids I mentioned earlier were very likely
omnivourous too.  

Was there any overlap in time or area between marrow-eating hominids and
possibly-marrow-eating large birds?  If one didn't show up till the
other was extinct in a given area I think we may simply see hominids
filling a niche that was available.

-Betty

Ronald Orenstein wrote:
> was sectioning turtles or something), and a bone-cracker is plausible, but
> I am not sure that size entirely rules out herbivory (as in Diatryma).  I
> assume from the point above that tugging at buried roots or tubers might
> not work as an explanation as these actions would probably have exerted
> forces along the length of the bill.
> 
> Of course the critter could have fooled us by being omnivorous!  And of
> course there are more reasons to eat bones than to get at the marrow - even
> deer will eat them for their calcium.
> Ronald Orenstein
> International Wildlife Coalition
> (currently on vacation in Florida)

-- 
Flying Goat Graphics
http://www.flyinggoat.com
(Society of Vertebrate Paleontology member)
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