Re: Albino Dino

[Dann Pigdon <dannj@alphalink.com.au>]

David Krentz wrote:
> 
> If a meat eating dinosaur was born albino, what kind of limitations
> would that put on its lifestyle?

Dying very young tends to put a dampener on most creatures' lifestyles. :)

Albinos in the wild tend to be predator magnets in most instances, not only
because they're easier to see (unless they happen to live in the snow or on salt
flats), but because their own eyesight is generally poor (which, it would seem,
would counter-act anything beneficial about living in high-glare environments
like snow or salt flats).

Even non-albino animals born with unusual white colouration (like lions or
tigers for instance) tend to have a hard time of things, even if their eyesight
is normal. They still stick out like sore thumbs to predators, and still have a
much higher rate of skin cancers than their normally coloured relatives. Unusual
colouration can also lead to individuals being shunned by others of their own
species, which can limit their reproductive success (assuming they live long
enough to reach adulthood of course). 

Hence why white lions and tigers are extremely rare in the wild - and why, in my
oppinion, zoos should sterilise their white animals at birth rather than
encourage such maladaptive traits (assuming there are plans to re-introduce
captive bred animals into the wild at some point in the future). Non-albino
white animals in captivity also tend to have higher rates of medical problems,
which suggests that the white colouration is just the immediately visible
consequence of more serious genetic problems. I suspect the health problems of
true albinos are even worse.

So the outlook for an albino dinosaur would seem to have been bleak. Perhaps a
nocturnal polar tro-odon might have fared (very) slightly better.

-- 
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Dann Pigdon
GIS / Archaeologist              Http://geo_cities.com/dannsdinosaurs
Melbourne, Australia             http://heretichides.soffiles.com
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