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From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu
[mailto:owner-dinosaur@usc.edu]On Behalf Of SCHMIDT
Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2001 9:41 PM > Just a few questions I have after seeing what I think was a very good, more accurate show then WWD > 1. Is there really evidence that
Megatherium and its relatives scavenged flesh occasionally?
None that I
have heard of (and I would not consider the jaws or teeth of sloths to be
particularly well suited for dealing with meat). Also, neither of the
living sloths (which bracket at least some of the "ground sloths"
phylogenetically, although I'm not certain of the position of megatheriids) are
meat scavengers, as far as I know.
I THINK this
may have been a compromise on the part of the producers between the standard
herbivorous model, and Farina's model of the predatory
Megatherium.
> 2. If Basilosaurus used its legs as
claspers why do modern whales not require them?
Because modern
whales are much smoother operators... Okay, modern whales demonstate
that claspers are not necessary, but it is true that Basilosaurus
still had small hindlimbs with apparently functional joints. I don't know
of any reason why they might not be used for this purpose, and various other
marine vertebrates have various pelvic claspers. However, there is no
direct evidence that they were used in this fashion.
> 3. Is there still great debate over
whether Gastornis was herbivorous or carnivorous or has a semi
consensus
> been reached?
I've not aware that Andors ever replied to the work of
Witmer and Rose (supporting carnivorous gastornithids) (if someone knows of
a ref., I'd love to see it). To my knowledge, most paleos favor a
carnivorous diet for Diatryma (aka Gastornis with a cowboy
accent), and thus by inference Gastornis as
well.
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