Re: Jurassic Park IV

[Mike Habib <habib@jhmi.edu>]

> Long before gunpowder, humans encountered and killed mammoths, all  
> sorts of big cats, canines (did the early north american settlers  
> encounter Dire Wolves?), hunted large sea animals, etc.  Mostly with  
> simple long pointed sticks.

Absolutely: never underestimate long pointed sticks.  Heck, they  
remained a battlefield weapon between *humans* until comparatively  
recently.

> A phalanx of men in the finest of Greek/Macedonian tradition could  
> probably stand against all but the largest of therepod predators.

And more to the point, said predator would turn and walk away when  
confronted with a row of armored, sharp, angry prey animals, which is  
the primary point I thought was worth mentioning here.

To the take the general aspect of the issue: the entertainment  
industry (even many science documentaries, if they take a dramatic  
angle) has had a tendency to push the idea that predators charge  
bravely into mortal combat, risking near-certain death to feed  
helpless young.  Of course, this is ridiculous for large, vertebrate  
predators with low reproductive rates.  While predatory insects, and  
similar taxa, may take high risk predation opportunities, those  
predators that cannot tolerate such attrition do not, and this  
includes most vertebrates.

Predators are looking for a meal, not a fair fight, and portraying  
them as "fighters" more than "feeders" has, I think, somewhat  
distorted the average viewer's concept of prey acquisition in the  
natural world.  After all, this is why armor, spines and other bits of  
armament work so well: a potential bit of predator sustenance does not  
need to even the odds, it only needs to make the possibility of  
retaliation more than distant.  5:1 odds for a cat or canine are  
hardly sufficient to take the risk, but many programs and anecdotal  
comments have accumulated over the years suggesting that your average  
large predator faces nearly 1:1 odds against its potential prey  
(depicting such scenes where reckless theropods charge a fully aware  
nodosaurid or ceratopsid, only to be skewered).  Because dinosaurs  
include very large, charismatic predators, they have been more abused  
in this regard than even most living mammalian carnivores, and I would  
suggest that those here with popular press opportunities make mention  
of this when appropriate (for example, if you happen to have a press  
release related to theropod feeding).  It always helps to chip away at  
major misconceptions.

Cheers,

--Mike


Michael Habib, M.S.
PhD. Candidate
Center for Functional Anatomy and Evolution
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
1830 E. Monument Street
Baltimore, MD 21205
(443) 280-0181
habib@jhmi.edu