Re: Spinosaurs ate pterosaurs

["Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>]

David Marjanovic (david.marjanovic@gmx.at) wrote:

<<Strikes me as an inefficient way to make a living.>>

Tim Williams (twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com) wrote:
 
<Yes, I would agree. Seems like a tough way to make a living: leaping off
the ground to snatch flying insects out of the air.  Plus, this would put
insect-catching theropods in competition with insect-catching pterosaurs,
which had a 70 mya headstart and the wings to show for it.>

  Indeed. However, I will have to disagree. Yes, it does seem darn
inefficient that the food does not fall conveniently at one's feet, but to
catch it, one must leap _after_ it :). Darn cheetahs specializing in being
extremely inefficient hunters of only fast prey. [This is intended to be
jocular.]

  Some birds have the nerve to soak their entire plumage they spend hours
cleaning to catch _one_ fish (anhingas, cormorants, kingfishers). Leaping,
by extension, can be repeated numerous times without losing efficient
productive time cleaning oneself or having to rest for half an hour or
longer (as in cheetahs). There are other hyper-specialized animals that
feed by enormous strain on their bodies, or by doing things that are
extraordinary by comparison to, say, salmon, as in the "spitting" fish.

  Cheers,

=====
Jaime A. Headden

  Little steps are often the hardest to take.  We are too used to making leaps 
in the face of adversity, that a simple skip is so hard to do.  We should all 
learn to walk soft, walk small, see the world around us rather than zoom by it.

"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)


                
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