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The appeal of some prehistoric animals over others

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Bk-notburgerking Since: Jan, 2015
#51: May 4th 2015 at 9:41:26 PM

It's more like a saber tooth cat-wolf combination, dentition, size and strength of the former with the speed, agility and stamina of the latter.

AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#52: May 4th 2015 at 9:41:35 PM

[up][up]Hey, you want a real whacked out predator? Try this one on for size.

edited 4th May '15 9:41:44 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Xopher001 Since: Jul, 2012
#53: May 4th 2015 at 9:42:10 PM

What about Lystrosaurs? They practically dominated the planet in the wake of the apocalypse. They were like rats, except they weren't rats

Bk-notburgerking Since: Jan, 2015
#54: May 4th 2015 at 9:44:22 PM

[up][up] knew about those already and had them on the list.

EDITS: sorry, I thought you were talking to me.

edited 4th May '15 9:45:08 PM by Bk-notburgerking

Canid117 Since: Oct, 2010 Relationship Status: Hello, I love you
#55: May 4th 2015 at 9:44:51 PM

It's a Komodo Hippo.

[up][up][up]Hellboars?

edited 4th May '15 9:45:06 PM by Canid117

"War without fire is like sausages without mustard." - Jean Juvénal des Ursins
Bk-notburgerking Since: Jan, 2015
#56: May 4th 2015 at 9:45:58 PM

Yep, but closer to hippos and whales (walking orca?)

AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#57: May 4th 2015 at 9:48:01 PM

[up][up]Pretty much. From what we can gather, it (the entelodont, that is, not the gorgonopsid) was less a pure predator, and more of an opportunistic feeder, using its sheer bulk and the strength of its bite to intimidate other predators away from kills they had made, in much the same way a bear might try to drive off a pack of wolves today.

Another fun one that needs to show up more? Andrewsarchus. What may have been the largest mammalian land predator ever.

edited 4th May '15 9:50:12 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Canid117 Since: Oct, 2010 Relationship Status: Hello, I love you
#58: May 4th 2015 at 9:50:25 PM

We must clone the Hellboars and place them on remote islands so that the rich can hunt them for sport.

"War without fire is like sausages without mustard." - Jean Juvénal des Ursins
Bk-notburgerking Since: Jan, 2015
#59: May 4th 2015 at 9:50:31 PM

[up][up]We'll every predator does that. But they are still predators. Unless you can soar on thermals you have to kill for meat, because carrion is hard to find on foot.

And let's skip Andrew until we have more than a skull. It was a giant badass predator related to entelodonts but that's all we know about it.

edited 4th May '15 9:52:51 PM by Bk-notburgerking

AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#60: May 4th 2015 at 9:54:08 PM

[up]Not every predator does that, actually. To pick an obvious and extreme example, cheetahs are incapable of scavenging. Their jaws are too weak to crush bone, and their builds are too light to intimidate other predators. They have to hunt and kill, because they've become too specialized to do anything else.

Back to the point you were trying to make, yes, most predators will scavenge given the chance. The entelodonts, however, were likely to have been primarily scavengers—their immense size would have made it difficult for them to run down or ambush prey, but would have been perfect for intimidating smaller, more successful predators off of kills.

Bk-notburgerking Since: Jan, 2015
#61: May 4th 2015 at 9:59:29 PM

Metabolic studies have disproved the idea any giant land carnivore can be a primary scavenger. It would lead to starvation.

Plus entelodonts were cursorial and wouldn't have had too much problems chasing things.

edited 4th May '15 10:01:00 PM by Bk-notburgerking

Canid117 Since: Oct, 2010 Relationship Status: Hello, I love you
#62: May 4th 2015 at 10:04:47 PM

Hunt them for sport.

"War without fire is like sausages without mustard." - Jean Juvénal des Ursins
AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#63: May 4th 2015 at 10:07:08 PM

[up][up]If they were purely carnivorous, yeah, that'd be a problem. Thing is, the entelodonts probably weren't. They're related to pigs, and their teeth suggest that they were omnivorous, as opposed to obligate carnivores (though they definitely had a preference for meat). They could quite easily have supplemented their diet with plants, which goes a long way to keeping you from starving.

That's not to say it couldn't or wouldn't take live prey. I've no doubt they could, and did. Their lifestyle, and diet, however, would have been more similar to that of a grizzly bear than a wolf.

edited 4th May '15 10:14:44 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Bk-notburgerking Since: Jan, 2015
#64: May 4th 2015 at 10:09:49 PM

Fair enough.

Another Miocene predator that gets the short stick? Barinasuchus. A fast, agile, badass predator, biggest meat-eater on land since T. rex, never appears anywhere.

Canid117 Since: Oct, 2010 Relationship Status: Hello, I love you
#65: May 4th 2015 at 10:12:12 PM

I reiterate. Hellboar Island. The perfect vacation destination.

Now I want a version of Jurrasic Park that caters to the Great White Hunter.

"War without fire is like sausages without mustard." - Jean Juvénal des Ursins
AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#66: May 4th 2015 at 10:17:12 PM

[up][up]Neither does Kaprosuchus, though at least in that case there were actual dinosaurs around to be distracting.

[up]Pretty sure I had a video game version of that.

edited 4th May '15 10:17:30 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Canid117 Since: Oct, 2010 Relationship Status: Hello, I love you
#67: May 4th 2015 at 10:19:42 PM

For added bonus clone Ernest Hemingway to be the tour guide.

edited 4th May '15 10:20:05 PM by Canid117

"War without fire is like sausages without mustard." - Jean Juvénal des Ursins
Bk-notburgerking Since: Jan, 2015
#68: May 4th 2015 at 10:20:13 PM

[up][up]Yep, good old alligator-sized Boar Croc.

edited 4th May '15 10:23:52 PM by Bk-notburgerking

AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#69: May 4th 2015 at 10:28:16 PM

The conversation about the entelodonts made me think of something I've always found amusing—the tendency of the general public to assume that animals that are largely predatory are inherently more badass than animals that largely scavenge. Which is actually fairly wrong-headed. Sure, predators have to be well-equipped and capable to kill their prey, but a successful scavenger has to be able to drive said predators away from their prey while there's still something left to eat.

That conversation and the one about Spinosaurus also reminded me of another wrong-headed notion I've seen bandied about elsewhere—that if a carnivore is large, there must be an innate connection to the size of its prey. Which again, isn't true at all. There can be lots of reasons for getting big, and while the size of your prey may be part of it, other factors come in as well. Both entelodonts and modern bears, for instance, got big (in part) because it's a good way to force somebody else away from their food. Spinosaurus is even funnier in some ways—it became one of the largest, if not the largest (it's the longest we've found so far; weight is another question) land predators ever...so that other large theropods, and the crocodilians it shared the riverbank with, would leave it alone while it went fishing.

edited 4th May '15 10:41:20 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Bk-notburgerking Since: Jan, 2015
#70: May 4th 2015 at 10:39:49 PM

I'd imagine that theropod became huge to take on sharks and other formidable prey (similar to how T. Rex upsized for bigger dinosaurs). It was already huge enough to be intimidating, especially with that sail. It didn't need to be the biggest theropod ever.

The real thing with that argument is that there really isn't a purely scavenging carnivore or omnivore or one even predominantly so (even with bears and entelodonts vegetation and live prey would have made up more of the diet). I'm sick of this idea that something flightless can ever be a pure scavenger and it needs to die. An animal that relied on stealing food alone would quickly starve to death. It would still have to hunt or eat plants most of the time.

For the most part, either they get big for bigger, tougher prey, or they get even larger for a lot of small easy prey. Intimidation is probably a side effect of that.

edited 4th May '15 10:46:15 PM by Bk-notburgerking

AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#71: May 4th 2015 at 10:47:17 PM

[up]Actually a good part of Spinosaurus' size is likely defensive. It shared the river bank with massive crocodilians, it shared the land with the likes of Charcharodontosaurus, and so it upsized itself to the point where absolutely nothing was going to interrupt its fishing trip, thank you very much. That's not to say prey selection didn't play a role there (there's never just one factor when it comes to why an evolutionary development pays off) but I'm willing to bet that defense was as important if not more so. While its prey wasn't small, Spinosaurus is still disproportionately large for what it ate; it was not, however, disproportionately large for who its neighbours were. We do agree on one thing at least though—whatever other purposes that sail might have been put to, at least a part of it was probably to say "look at me, I'm huge. Stay very far away".

I didn't say anything flightless could be a pure scavenger. I said that the more you rely on scavenging, the more willing to/capable of fighting you need to be. Which is true. Being huge assists with that. And while no, we shouldn't say anything is purely predator (except maybe a cheetah) or purely scavenging (except maybe a couple of species of vultures and bugs), saying that one animal is better adapted for scavenging than another, or pointing out adaptations that would have assisted with scavenging, isn't saying that.

To continue exploring "prehistoric animals that have been screwed in fictional depictions", you know who's fame isn't nearly proportional to his cool factor? My favourite dinosaur, Giganotosaurus. Seriously, it was the first theropod we found that we knew for sure was larger than Tyrannosaurus (Spinosaurus was discovered earlier, but the skeleton was incomplete, and the bones were destroyed during WWII bombings). It traveled in packs. It hunted the largest sauropods ever found. And yet is it nearly as famous as the theropods to either side of it when it comes to size? Nope. Tyrannosaurus had a near century of being the biggest carnivore around, and Spinosaurus got a (completely inaccurate) appearance in Jurassic Park III, but Giganotsaurus? One Dinotopia novel; that's the only piece of pop culture I can think of featuring it.

edited 4th May '15 11:03:51 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Euodiachloris Since: Oct, 2010
#72: May 5th 2015 at 1:14:21 AM

Speaking of scavenger-hunters of nightmares: Pachycrocuta. Yup, we grew up with these eating us. Fairly regularly. We might have even helped get rid of them, too. (I do not put it beyond Erectus-type humans to have had the ball rolling on our "whoops, we extincted them" habit.) But, those suckers were hellish.

rmctagg09 The Wanderer from Brooklyn, NY (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: I won't say I'm in love
The Wanderer
#73: May 5th 2015 at 2:44:30 AM

The lack of land croc mentions disappoints me. tongue

Hugging a Vanillite will give you frostbite.
3of4 Just a harmless giant from a foreign land. from Five Seconds in the Future. Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: GAR for Archer
Just a harmless giant from a foreign land.
#74: May 5th 2015 at 4:56:50 AM

Relevant.

(sort of.)

"You can reply to this Message!"
Bk-notburgerking Since: Jan, 2015
#75: May 5th 2015 at 5:17:12 AM

[up][up] We already mentioned Barinasuchus and Kaprosuchus. I'm not bringing in Quinkana, because that is a modern species that went extinct.

As for Giganotosaurus, it's Carcharodontosaurus that took on bigger prey (no, Big G didn't live with Argentinosaurus) and was larger overall. Plus it lived with Spinosaurus.

Speaking of Spino...considering its aquatic nature I don't think it needed to intimidate other theropods. The only thing I can see it having to compete with is Aegisuchus (Sarcosuchus was already extinct), and even then it's a very good possibility it was toothless.

But I think we need to see Saurophaganax. Look it up. It's so neglected that in one book a paleontologist didn't even consider it part of its ecosystem. Seriously, it's basically an Allosaurus the size of T. rex. And I haven't mentioned my favorite Paleozoic predator yet...

As for the giant hyena, going by its modern cousin it was much more of a predator than a scavenger.

edited 5th May '15 5:49:53 AM by Bk-notburgerking


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