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The appeal of some prehistoric animals over others

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Bk-notburgerking Since: Jan, 2015
#26: May 3rd 2015 at 2:51:08 PM

Yep. It isn't the most formable, and we will never know if it was smarter than others (obviously all of them had to be intelligent though). Its trademark crushing bite backfires horribly, making it unable to kill anything larger than itself.

It wasn't the biggest, wasn't the most sophisticated (because every species is sophisticated), probably wasn't the smartest (because every predator is intelligent), didn't take on the most challenging prey (it ties with Spinosaurus in this regard and is left in the dust by giant carcharodontosaurs), and its strong bite neither was efficient nor able to kill anything in one bite, like the weaker but deadlier cutting bites of carnosaurs were.

edited 3rd May '15 2:55:23 PM by Bk-notburgerking

Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#27: May 3rd 2015 at 3:07:41 PM

The Mario of prehistoric predators. But everyone loves Mario!

Reymma RJ Savoy from Edinburgh Since: Feb, 2015 Relationship Status: Wanna dance with somebody
RJ Savoy
#28: May 3rd 2015 at 3:43:38 PM

[up] But it killed prey by biting, not jumping on them!

[up][up] Is it clear that it could not kill anything bigger? I can imagine it taking down a sauropod if it got within reach of its neck. But arguments about how fearsome it was is a very human way of looking at animals. Predators don't fight the biggest and toughest herbivore in a pack in an epic showdown on nicely prepared piece of ground; they go for the young and infirm. There should be more focus on reconstructing how species worked alongside each other to form an ecosystem.

[up][up][up] My favourite paleontology book to this day is The Young Oxford Book of the Prehistoric World. Yes it has an archaic Tyrannosaur on the cover, but not only is it given no special focus, dinosaurs themselves only take up about a tenth of its length. It really looks at the history of life and not just the crowd-pleasing big animals. Though now it is badly out of date.

Stories don't tell us monsters exist; we knew that already. They show us that monsters can be trademarked and milked for years.
Bk-notburgerking Since: Jan, 2015
#29: May 3rd 2015 at 4:05:18 PM

It wasn't much of a jumper (that's what being a specialist endurance runner does to you) and its bite requires a lot of muscles to power it and blunt teeth to withstand the impact...resulting in a small gape and teeth that don't cut through flesh.

AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#30: May 3rd 2015 at 4:51:55 PM

[up][up]There weren't any sauropods for it to kill. Tyrannosaurus is from Late Cretaceous North America, and its prey would have been hadrosaurs and ceratopsians, because that was what was around. If you want to see gigantic theropods attacking sauropods in the Cretaceous, you need North Africa or South America (where the theropod in question would be Giganotosaurus or Charcharodontosaurus).

Not sure where BK's comment about it tying Spinosaurus when it comes to the prey it tackled comes from, though. Spinosaurus, like its relatives Baryonyx and Suchomimus was primarily a fish-eater.

nightwyrm_zero Since: Apr, 2010
#31: May 3rd 2015 at 5:16:20 PM

Regardless of its stats, the Rex survived in its environment for millions of years. It is, by any reasonable measure, a successful and well-adapted predator in its natural habitat.

edited 3rd May '15 5:18:40 PM by nightwyrm_zero

rmctagg09 The Wanderer from Brooklyn, NY (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: I won't say I'm in love
The Wanderer
#32: May 3rd 2015 at 5:20:20 PM

[up][up] That's not entirely true, it's believed that in their southernmost range T. rex could've predated the titanosaur Alamosaurus.

edited 3rd May '15 5:20:38 PM by rmctagg09

Hugging a Vanillite will give you frostbite.
Bk-notburgerking Since: Jan, 2015
#33: May 3rd 2015 at 5:20:52 PM

[up][up][up] Those fish were the same size as, and just as challenging and dangerous as, the dinosaurs T. rex hunted. And since fish are not inferior to anything else, it's fair to say Spinosaurus had a similar prey-size capacity. Would you call a great white shark weak because it's a fish, or call a saltwater crocodile weak because over 90% of its diet is fish?

T. rex did live with Alamosaurus, but it could only attack the babies. And adult would be far too big for this thing, large enough that T. rex couldn't bite it. A carnosaur would have had better luck.

Regarding how successful it was, we can't tell because it was cut short by an asteroid.

edited 3rd May '15 5:22:30 PM by Bk-notburgerking

AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#34: May 3rd 2015 at 9:34:19 PM

[up]They really weren't. The fish we have evidence for Spinosaurus eating weighed in at about 1.5 tonnes. The largest ceratopsians were in the 5 and 6 tonne range.

But here's the thing—who cares? They were different predators, filling different ecological niches. One was a fish-eater whose size kept it safe from other large predators, one the apex predator within its environment, and a versatile scavenger to boot. Both lasted for millions of years, and were well-designed for the role they played in their environment.

"Would you call a great white shark weak because it's a fish, or call a saltwater crocodile weak because over 90% of its diet is fish?"

This is a silly thing to say, on so many different levels, since I said nothing of the sort. I said that Spinosaurus' hunting style was less risky then that of a T. Rex which is an empirical fact. Even if it was eating great white sharks (and it wasn't) it would outweigh them by two or three times, and be "victorious" as soon as it pulled it onto shore, as compared to the rex, who was much closer in size to his prey and hunted it in its own environment.

That you're getting offended by as innocuous a comment as that is strange to me, because again, it's not a contest. We're discussing two very different animals—indeed two different families of animals—who filled two very different ecological niches, and filled them very successfully. Stating that one tackled less dangerous prey isn't insulting them. Under that logic stating that Pacific grizzlies, who subsist in a large part on fish, tackle less risky prey than cougars, who subsist mostly on deer, would somehow be an insult. It's not; it's a statement of fact. They have a different role in the ecosystem, and eat different prey.

[up][up][up]I don't think anybody is disputing that. At least I'm certainly not. What I am complaining about is a tendency in books on dinosaurs for the authors to try and compensate for the Rex no longer being the reigning king of terrestrial predators by trying to claim it was somehow "better" than the larger ones. It's highly unprofessional, and it doesn't belong in an informative book. That's the province of Internet fight threads, not supposedly scientific books.

Bk-notburgerking Since: Jan, 2015
#35: May 4th 2015 at 5:24:22 AM

Those fish were twice as large as you say, and T. rex wasn't built to kill prey the same size or larger than itself, either. Both we're mostly going for something half their size.

And it wouldn't have pulled its catch to shore. It was an aquatic predator. It would have had to finish it in water. It too was hunting it in its own environment. It wasn't a wader, it was a diver. It wasn't a matter of grab and pull it ashore.

edited 4th May '15 5:45:42 AM by Bk-notburgerking

Reymma RJ Savoy from Edinburgh Since: Feb, 2015 Relationship Status: Wanna dance with somebody
RJ Savoy
#36: May 4th 2015 at 1:58:13 PM

Spinosaurus must have had hunting behaviours very different from Tyrannosaurus. Just look at the jaw and body build. Spinosaurus had long, fairly thin jaws and grasping hands. That suggests a predator that scoops up small prey scurrying past, or digs into burrows. (I mean small compared to this huge behemoth.) Tyrannosaurus had jaws thicker than even today's crocodiles and very powerful legs. That's the build of a predator that chases down large, fast animals and disables them with a powerful bite.

Both were impressive predators, but with very different prey and methods. Tyrannosaurus would have definitely won a fight to the death between them, but even if the two co-existed there would be little reason for it.

T Rex wins out by the sensationalist measure of straight-up fights, but I don't think that's a good way to look at them. I've done some drawings of dinosaurs and I try to both capture more peaceful moments, or the stalking that precedes a chase, and to emphasise the wider environment in which they lived.

Stories don't tell us monsters exist; we knew that already. They show us that monsters can be trademarked and milked for years.
Bk-notburgerking Since: Jan, 2015
#37: May 4th 2015 at 2:12:22 PM

Small compared to this yes, but even that those "small prey" weigh 3 tons. Considering that was the average prey size for T. rex as well (neither is built to attack anything very large), you can't call it weaker or hunting smaller prey. Both were eating 3 ton animals. Neither was eating anything bigger than themselves. And remember Spino hunted only in water. You don't need long legs to chase something in water. It wasn't hunting like a stork; a saltwater crocodile or even a shark would make a much better analogy.

Before you call its jaws thin, I want you to look at its skull. Those jaws are long, but not very thin, and certainly not weak.

As for that battle, it would be physically impossible for T. rex to win, because its jaws don't work that way. It sacrificed the ability to kill big prey for tremendous bitepower. Not saying Spino would win (it's strong enough to just barely get the job done, but consider its short legs, unless it's in water all it can do is defend itself), but T. rex has no chance either.

I agree the stalk before the chase is more exciting than the chase itself at times and the point regarding sensationalism. But you're still sensationalizing T. rex-there is simply no way it can kill prey or opponent larger than itself. It was too specialized for that (this applies to Spino as well)

edited 4th May '15 2:20:29 PM by Bk-notburgerking

AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#38: May 4th 2015 at 2:42:59 PM

[up][up][up]

"Those fish were twice as large as you say"

Citation needed. I've got all my books—and I've got a library of them—in front of me, and not one backs up your claim there.

"T. rex wasn't built to kill prey the same size or larger than itself"

T Rex wasn't built to kill prey significantly larger than itself, but it still tackled animals within its own weight range. The largest ceratopsians were, however, in the 5-6 tonne range, while Rex was in the 6-7 tonne range. That's well within the same weight class, and is significantly more risky than going fishing.

"And it wouldn't have pulled its catch to shore. It was an aquatic predator. It would have had to finish it in water."

It was semi-aquatic. There's a difference.

Quite frankly I'm not sure why you're so defensive about this. I didn't say that Spinosaurus was a wuss, I said that it took fewer risks than Tyrannosaurus when it came to prey selection. If you want to see the proof of that, look at their skeletons. Most Spinosaurus remains indicate an animal that was in relatively good condition when it died. Trying to find a Tyrannosaurus skeleton that doesn't feature some sort of barely healed injury, approaches being an exercise in futility.

[up]I was worried this was going to turn into "who can kill who", which is so completely meaningless in this context. The two would never have fought, not only because they filled different ecological niches, not only because they lived continents apart, but because predators, generally speaking, don't fight each other.

That said, since we've come here, the Spinosaurus would lose. And it has nothing to do, by the way, with who tackles bigger prey, and everything to do with the rest of their behaviour. We have plenty of fossil evidence that indicates that Tyrannosaurus' regularly fought each other, and if confronted by another large theropod, it would have reacted like a fighter, not a hunter. Spinosaurus is larger than Tyrannosaurus, but not significantly so, and in the end, this would play out like a fight between a male lion and a male tiger—with the larger animal being killed beaten by the one that actually knows how to fight. As to this "It sacrificed the ability to kill big prey for tremendous bitepower," that's one of the sillier things I've ever seen. No, it could not have killed a sauropod. But its jaws would work just fine on a fellow large theropod. We know, because they regularly worked just fine on one another.

But again, this is a pointless thing to discuss, because not only would it never happen, but it says exactly nothing about either animal's ability to survive in the niche it evolved to fill. One's a fisher and scavenger whose tremendous size allowed it to avoid fights with other large predators, despite its (comparatively) light build. The other's a heavily-built apex predator who specialized in tackling prey its own size or slightly smaller. Both survived for millions of years. Both were highly specialized.

Aszur A nice butterfly from Pagliacci's Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
A nice butterfly
#39: May 4th 2015 at 2:45:08 PM

Spino and T rex would definitely be able to trade some nasty insults with each other tho

edited 4th May '15 2:45:17 PM by Aszur

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
Bk-notburgerking Since: Jan, 2015
#40: May 4th 2015 at 2:55:44 PM

[up][up] So crocodiles pull fish up onto the banks when they catch it to kill it, apparently. Just because it can go on land doesn't mean it went there to eat.

Here's your citation: http://www.prehistoric-wildlife.com/species/m/mawsonia.html http://www.prehistoric-wildlife.com/species/o/onchopristis.html I don't see how that ISN'T risky prey.

We hardly have any skeletons for Spino, it isn't fair to say anything aggression-related when there are barely any samples to begin with.

As for the "bitepower vs killing power" argument, tell be how is it even going to get its jaws around something larger then itself. Keep in mind these two species have very different body shapes (one has a six-foot structure on its back that will not lead to tis death if damaged)

I still say this battle is pointless because neither side could win.

edited 4th May '15 2:57:34 PM by Bk-notburgerking

AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#41: May 4th 2015 at 7:02:36 PM

[up]Spinosaurus was far more terrestrial than a crocodile.

That's not a citation. The first one references that Spinosauarid dinosaurs might have preyed on the fish, the second one makes no mention of it preying on them.

And yes, it's a dumb argument. You are however, making it significantly dumber with your insistence that a Rex's jaws, which were wired for crushing bone, somehow can't inflict any damage on another large theropod, on the basis of nothing more than "it didn't hunt large prey." We have evidence of Tyrannosaurus' biting one another, with crippling and even lethal results. It could, therefore, bite another large theropod with crippling, and even lethal results. As for where it would bite another large theropod, the same places they bit one another—face, neck, upper chest. Rex was a brawler.

It's silly not because neither animal can win, but because a) they never could/would have fought in the first place, and b) who can beat up who says nothing about how successful the animal in question was. I would love to not be having this discussion. So long as you keep insisting that the fact that something didn't hunt large prey means it was incapable of injuring another animal in a fight, however, I'll keep arguing with you, in defense of logic, if nothing else.

edited 4th May '15 7:03:34 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Bk-notburgerking Since: Jan, 2015
#42: May 4th 2015 at 7:52:02 PM

The idea Spinosaurus was more terrestrial has been debunked. And a tooth from the sawfish was found stuck in a Spinosaurus jaw.

And why would it try to bite those areas where risk of counterattack is severe?

I am also arguing only for the sake of logic-I would rather stop, but the fanboyism needs to die. I am at least willing to say there is no winner.

AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#43: May 4th 2015 at 8:56:39 PM

We seem to have strayed from the topic. To get back on track, what other prehistoric creatures would people like to see appear in more fiction? I admit I'm rather fond of the marsupial predators that inhabited prehistoric South America and Australia.

[up]"And why would it try to bite those areas where risk of counterattack is severe?"

I guess you'd have to ask it. I didn't say it would bite there, I said it did. We've found Tyrannosaurus skeletons with holes in the skulls, vertebrae, and upper torsos, that exactly match the puncture wounds made by the teeth of another Tyrannosaurus; in at least one case that I know of, it was this injury that killed it. I've stated several times now—this was an animal that had a habit of fighting its own. I don't know why you keep trying to disregard that.

Is it stupid to bite another predator on the face? Yes. But all the fossil evidence indicates that Tyrannosaurus was exactly that stupid.

"but the fanboyism needs to die."

There isn't any fanboyism. Remember my first post? It was bitching about the idolization of the Rex. I hate that I've been put in the position of having to defend its ability as a fighter. Unfortunately, all the evidence suggests it was a fighter, and I'm not going to let my personal dislike for the animal and its rabid fanbase prevent me from acknowledging the research.

edited 4th May '15 9:11:02 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Bk-notburgerking Since: Jan, 2015
#44: May 4th 2015 at 9:24:33 PM

The Miocene predators.

Seriously, it was the era of predators but never shows up in any documentary.

The Australian predators are modern species for the most part, and just because they are extinct doesn't mean they don't belong in our world. They belong in media showing modern but extinct animals, not media showing ancient animals.

edited 4th May '15 9:26:52 PM by Bk-notburgerking

AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#45: May 4th 2015 at 9:27:48 PM

[up]They are still prehistoric animals; ie, gone before there was recorded history in their part of the world. And note that I mentioned the South American marsupials as well.

Bk-notburgerking Since: Jan, 2015
#46: May 4th 2015 at 9:31:24 PM

The sparossodonts were part of the Miocene predator assemblage, so I did take them into account. But it was theropods and crocodilians in charge there anyways.

The only Miocene predator that's stock is [[Megalodon]], and while it deserves respect as he largest and most successful apex predator ever (outlasting its mammalian competitors), it shouldn't be the only one when there are 8-ton crocs, 3-foot piranhas, terror birds and a giant viper in its era too.

And back to that annoying debate... It fought its own. We don't know how it reacted to something else. And let's end this here.

edited 4th May '15 9:36:19 PM by Bk-notburgerking

AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#47: May 4th 2015 at 9:33:43 PM

[up]? Theropods and crocodilians dominating the Miocene? Unless you're using theropod to refer to the "terror birds" (which I guess you could be, what with a giant flightless, predatory bird being about as close to a dinosaur as you're going to get after the Cretaceous, but that's not exactly common usage of term) I'm definitely not seeing the former.

A fight is a fight. When a lion meets a tiger, it fights it as though it were another lion, because that is the closest context it has—certainly a closer context than attacking a prey animal. The same would most likely apply to a large theropod encountering another large theropod—no matter how different the body builds, it's closer to fighting one of your own than it is to tackling a prey animal. No, we can't know for sure, but it's about as reasonable an assumption as you can make when discussing prehistoric biology.

edited 4th May '15 9:38:22 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Bk-notburgerking Since: Jan, 2015
#48: May 4th 2015 at 9:37:30 PM

Yes I mean the terror birds. The Miocene was when they were at their most diverse, and when the largest and fastest species lived.

Birds are dinosaurs after all.

I put up a list of spectacular Miocene predators on page 1, if only all of them got attention....

edited 4th May '15 9:39:53 PM by Bk-notburgerking

AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#49: May 4th 2015 at 9:39:16 PM

[up]Do me a favour and just call them that then, please? Birds may well be dinosaurs, but it doesn't help with clarity any.

edited 4th May '15 9:42:15 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Canid117 Since: Oct, 2010 Relationship Status: Hello, I love you
#50: May 4th 2015 at 9:39:49 PM

"Googles Gorgonops"

It's a Komodo Hippo?

"War without fire is like sausages without mustard." - Jean Juvénal des Ursins

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