On 4/19/2011 1:16 PM, Jason Brougham wrote:
...
Are modern crocodilians definitely primarily scavengers? We've all seen
the youtube videos where they engage in ambush predation on large
animals. Cretaceous crocodilians were more diverse and could have
included more active predators.
The argument is not that crocs are scavengers -- the argument is that a
critter that eats a lot of bone evolves very strong acids -- hence, the
presence of bone preserved in the gut indicates that bone was not very
important as a dietary component, which seems unlikely in a scavenger.