Re: T-Rex was a slowpoke

Will in New Haven wrote:
On Jun 7, 11:04 pm, Ken Shackleton <ken.shackle...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jun 7, 8:20 pm, JTEM <jte...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Ken Shackleton <ken.shackle...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
I do not know if it is generally true that bipedalism
provides superior initial speed.
There's been zillions of "races" pitting man against
horse, though most are nothing but a show. Anyhow,
a good human sprinter is generally faster off the
start,

(A fact that Rincewind exploited....)


and then the horse quickly catches up &
surpasses him. The trick is to make the race short
enough to shock the audience when the horse
loses...



True enough, I was just having a difficult time with the notion that
bipedalism, in general, provides an advantage off the mark when
compared with a quadruped. Using the human example, most [quadruped]
predators capable of killing us [big cats, bears] are also capable of
catching us even over very short distances. Conversely, I imagine that
few humans would be very successful when attempting to catch [bare-
handed] a quadruped [that has evolved for running] unless that animal
was tethered to a post.

Pre-agricultural hunting peoples routinely walk down exhausted
quadrapeds. They have to track pretty well and they do employ weapons
but nothing they do would be impossible for early modern hunans. For
the first few steps, a human is faster than some quadrapeds. After
fifteen or twenty miles, only wolves, kangaroos, pronghorns and a few
similar animals can escape from men.


Those jaws would provide quite an advantage; but
if its chase speed is so much slower than the
quadruped prey, the inflicted wound would have
to be grievous enough to prevent the prey animal
from running away...since such a disadvantaged
biped may not be able to keep up with even a
wounded quadruped....
The nose of a T-Rex would put any bloodhound to
shame.
I didn't imply that it would not be able to track its wounded
quarry...as indicated by my next sentence.



and by the time it tracked down the carcass...some
other T-Rex may be scavenging the kill.
So it couldn't scavange for the same reason, right?
Sure it could scavenge, it likely did; but in tracking its quarry, it
might find that it's taken by the time it caught up with it...that's
all.

T-Rex could scavange the same way that lions or hyenas scavange, by
kill-stealing. The idea that scavanging is an easier way to get dinner
comes from thinking about vultures and, to a lesser extent, jackals. T-
Rex couldn't fly (although birds ARE dinosaurs) and wasn't likely
quick enough to bite a bit and run jackal-style. There are a lot of
theorists who think about early modern humans as primarily scavengers.
I think it is easier to kill gazellles than to drive hyenas or lions
off a gazelle kill.


AIUI, evidence for human scavenging include tool marks over
teeth marks to get to marrow in large bones. Not many savanna
scavengers are big on that marrow: The big beasts go for the
prime parts and the little beasts can't get to it. (I don't
think there were any wolflike predators there and then.)


It is possible that many a big, slow adult T-Rex got its food
exclusively from kill-stealing. With their olafactory equipment and
size and biting power, they could take prey from lesser predators
fairly reliably.

IIRC, in the wild, tigers have a lower than 10% take-down
rate when they charge after prey, but pretty much control
the kill once they have it. In contrast, cheetah pairs
have a ~85% take-down rate per charge, but lose much of
their kills to small scavengers and other large predators.

(I don't know the take-down percentage for cats, but 97%
of the kills end up in a high-traffic area of the house.)



Noelie


--
Lizards, cicadas and moths--oh my!

.

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