On Feb 7, 2011, at 7:29 PM,<vultur-10@neo.tamu.edu> wrote:
Yes, elephant-lion is rare.
But Cape buffalo are a *major* part of lion diet, IIRC more than half of some lion
populations' diet (Lake Manyara National Park is one, I think<60% Cape buffalo)
and that's something like 3-4x the lion's mass; especially since lionesses do most
of the hunting, and they're often like 120kg animals, not 200kg. *Allosaurus
amplexus* or *Saurophaganax* were larger in comparison to *Diplodocus carnegii*.
Group attacks by lion on cape buffalo are common in some populations, true, but
I am under the impression (admittedly from older literature) that solo attacks
on such animals is extremely rare. Taking into account that the average
hunting group of lions is at least 3-4 individuals strong, that means that the
mass ratio is actually close to 1:1, with the added advantages that a group of
attackers naturally has on a single target.
And what were *Allosaurus amplexus* and *Saurophaganax* --doing-- if they
weren't specialist sauropod, possibly big-sauropod, killers? Everything else
*A. fragilis* was quite big enough to deal with.
I suggest that perhaps they were killing larger juveniles, primarily. Under
that model animals such as A. fragilis would be killing smaller juveniles and
the adults of small ornithopods, etc. There's no reason to expect that any
animals must have regularly predated the adults of large sauropods. And there
is no reason that the prey sizes could not overlap significantly; prey sizes
taken by large carnivorans in semi-arid African habitats overlap quite a bit
among multiple predators. Far more is made of niche-partitioning that probably
aught to be.
But yes, the real titans were probably safe most of the time barring really
hungry / desperate theropods. Still, the idea you sometimes see that 'adult
sauropods were basically immune to predation' needs, at the least,
qualification.
True enough. However, the reverse notion, that theropods regularly mauled
giant sauropods to death, is seen very regularly, and seems highly implausible.
Adult sauropods were probably not immune to predation, but some of them were
likely close.
Cheers,
--Mike
William Miller
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Habib"<MHabib@Chatham.edu>
To: vultur-10@neo.tamu.edu
Cc: "dinosaur"<dinosaur@usc.edu>
Sent: Monday, February 7, 2011 12:11:46 PM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central
Subject: Re: cause of Gigantism in sauropods
On Feb 7, 2011, at 12:45 AM,<vultur-10@neo.tamu.edu> wrote:
So in the Morrison, the sauropod-theropod size gap seems smaller than the
elephant-lion one. I see little reason to believe that Saurophaganax or A.
maximus could not take down even Giraffatitan or Supersaurus.
Neat comparison with the body mass estimates (thanks for punching the numbers!)
but I'm not sure I quite agree with your conclusion. It seems reasonable that
something like Saurophaganax could take down something like Giraffatitan under
very rare, extreme circumstances, just as living terrestrial macro-predators
(or groups of them) very rarely kill much larger animals than themselves.
However, I see no reason to expect that such events were common, or even
occurred with a high enough frequency for us to seriously consider them as
major factors in our reconstructions of Mesozoic ecology. Living terrestrial
vertebrate predators rarely take prey even three times their own mass, much
less 6-8 times.
The elephant-lion size ratio probably does not represent the ratio at which
predation is regular or ecologically important; at best it is a ratio at which
a very rare predation event is still barely feasible - and that is for a
specific guild of predators and herbivorous mammals. The more important size
ratio is the maximum predator:prey mass ratio among *regular* predation events.
Phrased as a question: Of those large terrestrial animals that are predated as
adults with a high enough frequency for its impact on total population
mortality to be measurable, how large are their smallest predators (or total
mass of packs, if they are predated by groups)?
I don't know exactly what the answer to that question is, but qualitative
observation suggests that the size gap is pretty small. The vast majority of
predators, even large ones, mostly take prey smaller than themselves. Even
animals like water buffalo, which are a fraction of the size of elephants, are
large enough as adults to be predated upon rarely (albeit more often than
elephants).
Cheers,
--Mike
Michael Habib
Assistant Professor of Biology
Chatham University
Woodland Road, Pittsburgh PA 15232
Buhl Hall, Room 226A
mhabib@chatham.edu
(443) 280-0181
Michael Habib
Assistant Professor of Biology
Chatham University
Woodland Road, Pittsburgh PA 15232
Buhl Hall, Room 226A
mhabib@chatham.edu
(443) 280-0181