Re: birds and dinosaurs

[Amtoine Grant <ajgrant@eastlink.ca>]

> What about differences such as feathers?

Do you have evidence tyrannosaurs didn't have feathers? That doesn't 
really have any direct impact on the proposition anyway. Crocodiles 
don't have feathers and they're VERY good at hunting mammalian prey.

> , or high metabolism
umm . ., did you ever hear about the discovery of a dinosaur named 
Deinonychus, Microraptor, etc?
> extreme good eyesight
AFAIK, Tyrannosaurs did have binocular vision. Besides, it would seem 
to me that 'extremely good eyesight' would become more important when 
you're flying high up in the air scanning the ground for prey such as 
rabbits, mice, etc.
> and high intelligence not to mention specialization to hunt small 
> mammalian prey.

What else was there TO hunt . . .? The 'terror birds' would have been 
just as specialized to hunt lizards, snakes, fish, etc., IMHO.
What IS the estimated relative intelligence of the 'terror birds'? 
Besides the fact that a big brain doesn't really mean that you're 
smart(er). Look at humans, for example. Most everything we seem to do 
is illogical from a survival standpoint. Our parents have brains just 
as big as ours, but most of them can't play video game, let alone use 
the remote to program the vcr they bought! Not to mention the average 
human couldn't last a day in the wild, big brain or none. But that's a 
whole 'nother discussion.
Again, crocodiles don't seem to have "high inteligence" and they're 
very specialized at hunting mammalian prey.