Re: Cretaceous taeniodont

["Richard W. Travsky" <rtravsky@uwyo.edu>]

On Fri, 9 Apr 2004, John Bois wrote:
> On Fri, 9 Apr 2004, Richard W. Travsky wrote:
> 
> > Multi month stays? How many species do we know that we can say this about?
> 
> Ostrich, rhea, emu.  Of course we don't know about Mesozoic dinosaurs--but
> it has to be at least a month for any large species.

Ack, sorry, I was referring to dinosaur species.
 
> > Would not large species, especially a large group, strip the area of food?
> > Would lay-and-forget be more perdominant?
> 
> Many immigrant species stock up on food for the incubation period--so, not
> necessarily.  Others (emu) go into a dormant period--I think this is
> unlikey if nest defense was the method of protection, however.

Ditto.
 
> Lay-and-forget?  In my view, this strategy is limited to species that can
> fulfill a narrow range of conditions: small eggs layed at depth (to avoid
> predation); tiny eggs layed in litter (concealed to avoid predation);
> small eggs layed at depth in sand only (to avoid drowning); species that
> can lay remotely (e.g., most sea turtles to swamp local predators--note,
> this strategy unlikely available to mainland dinos due to broad guild of
> potential nest predators, e.g., monitors, other dinos, winged dinos,
> winged pterosaurs, mammals, etc., etc.).

And ditto here.
 
> > As a team no but as a herd perhaps.
> 
> Not a reason to exclude mammals from entering a specific size-determined
> niche (i.e., mammals flock, too).