Re: Sauroparental care

[Graydon <oak@uniserve.com>]

On Tue, Dec 23, 2003 at 06:57:48AM -0500, John Bois scripsit:
> On Mon, 22 Dec 2003, Graydon wrote:
> > Sauropod reproductive success doesn't appear to need any particular
> > effort to explain that would require invoking parental care.
> 
> Walking out the door...
> 
> But, I think it highly unlikely that _any_ babies could survive the "lawn
> mower" Mesozoic predatory environment w/out protection.  Parental size is
> a massive benefit.  How else to survive?

The survival rate would be dreadful, sure, but a dreadful survival
rate is quite possibly enough.  Frogs and sea turtles manage.

Also note that the predator size (and thus the prey size) was also
skewed large in a sauropod ecology.  This probably has effects on the
distribution of predatory pressure over the sauropod growth curve, but I
have no idea if there's enough known information to test that idea.

-- 
oak@uniserve.com | Uton we hycgan    hwaer we ham agen,
                 | ond thonne gedhencan    he we thider cumen.
                 |   -- The Seafarer, ll. 117-118.