Re: attack on dinosaur--horrific video

[David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

> OK...but the ways in which they were different may have had far reaching
> consequences.  The big one, in my view, was that the dinosaurs had to 
> become
> sedentary one or more times a year.  If they were unable to outdistance
> other dinosaurs, then they would have to defend their nests.  This by 
> itself
> provided a selective advantage for even larger size, and all the 
> ecological
> effects that came with it.

Then we should see a driven trend to larger size throughout the Mesozoic, 
shouldn't we?

Because... it's somewhat disingenuous to refer to my still unpublished M.Sc. 
thesis, the dataset of which needs to be expanded and the methods of which 
need to be drastically improved... but I don't see such a trend so far.

> (example, value for predation protection in lizards, vs., predator
> protection _plus_ producing a better-baked baby in wilderbeest).

Is vivipary any good for protection from predators? The marsupial method 
seems to be better for than than the placental one. If a gravid wildebeest 
is chased by a lion, mother and fetus die. If a kangaroo with a pouch young 
is chased by a dingo, the joey dies alone, because of that special muscle in 
the pouch... while the waiting embryo resumes development, resulting in a 
net loss of nothing but a few weeks or months. As an r-strategy, placental 
reproduction sucks bigtime.

> And...my head hurts.  I know we go back and forth on these issues...I, 
> too,
> enjoy the discussions...and I have aired my views too many times as is. 
> My
> excuse this time is the amazing video of the subject line...it graphically
> demonstrates the problem of a non-concealed, non-remote nest.

In animals that don't know what a mouse is.