RE: Dichotomy!!!

["Allan Edels" <edels@msn.Com>]

David, et al:

I wrote:
        >> There are therefore 3 hypotheses in this "debate":
        >> _T. rex_ is
        >> 1) A Pure Predator
        >> 2) An Obligate Scavenger
        >> 3) A bit of both (in varying degrees).

David wrote:
        >.. #1 is AFAIK a strawman, nobody believes it.


I agree with you in that #1 is a straw-man.  BUT Jack uses #1 as part of
HIS dichotomy, not #2 and #3.  Actually, I think that #2 is a straw-man
as well.  There are no large obligate scavengers, IIRC.  

For example, I don't think of hyenas as being that large, and they are
not obligate scavengers - their older reputation is based on people
seeing them waiting until the lions finish eating before the hyena get
to the carcass - longer surveillance of hyenas has shown that the hyenas
usually kill the prey, then the lions bully then away, then the hyenas
return.  Jack seems to be arguing that _T. rex_ is like the lions - but
we know that lions DO HUNT.   

If Jack was trying to argue that _T. rex_ was MORE of a scavenger than a
predator, then he might have a reasonable case.  However, he wasn't and
isn't.

It's nice to see that: 

        "...a show of hands by the group of children at the opening
Thursday already        suggested the likely answer -- almost all said
T-Rex was probably a    combination predator-scavenger."  
(This is from the Reuters article on CNN.COM from the opening of
London's Natural History Museum's exhibit about _T. rex_).

Cheers!

Allan Edels