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Re: Michael Crichton dies



Delurking for a moment. Koalas are not alone liking eucalyptus. Certain modern avian theropods enjoy eating and in fact, thrive with eucalyptus about in their environment.

I once owned a breeding pair of Eclectus roratus (red female and green male) that loved to tear into leaves and wood from eucalyptus that I used to import Fed Ex from California for their enjoyment. (It tended to get them into the mood so to speak).

Certain animals, as one would suspect, make use of any resource if available, to quote a very talented man, "life will find a way".

Best to the family and friends of Michael Crichton

The world is a lesser place by his loss.

Frank (Rooster) Bliss
MS Biostratigraphy
Weston, Wyoming
www.wyomingdinosaurs.com <----------If you haven't seen my web page lately, time to see the latest technology on the web!



On Nov 6, 2008, at 6:02 PM, Dann Pigdon wrote:

Quoting David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>:

The movie seems to agree, what with all the
high-browsing *Brachiosaurus*, one of which even rears on its hindlimbs...

Using it's tail for support (despite a lack of large caudal chevrons) - and to feed from a eucalyptus
tree, of all things. Their leaves are highly toxic to most creatures (full of phenolic and terpene
compounds), and those few species that can stomach them tend to target the fresh shoots in
preferance to the older leaves. Koalas are the exception, but they need to spend about twenty
hours a day sleeping just to digest their highly toxic diet (and have severely decreased their brain
size to cope with the toxicity).


A brachiosaur with a belly full of eucalypt leaves would be a very short-lived one - but at least it
would have died with fresh breath and a clear nasal passage. :)


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