That little rant I mentioned a few days ago...
Okay, it may seem like a trivial thing, but OMFG I hate it when I watch a show on, say, Discovery HD or something and we have a scientist talking up his theory and basing his conclusions on specific bits of evidence TOTALLY ignoring the other evidence at hand.
I watched a show ("Valley of the T. rex" if I remember correctly) featuring Dr. Jack Horner, a longtime proponent of the idea that T. rex HAD to have been a scavenger rather than a predator. In it, he provides large portions of evidence that points to the unavoidable conclusion that T. rex must have been a scavenger.
Except I, a lowly layperson, kept poking holes in his theories left, right, and center.
Pardon me while I put on my "I coulda been a scientist" cap for a second here. Dinosaurs have always fascinated me, as have the myriad of creatures in the animal kingdom, past and present.
Dr. Horner's arguments are interesting theories, but there's plenty of room for counterargument. One of his arguments is that T. rex simply was too slow and fragile(?!) to actively hunt.
Yes, bone structure analysis of other contemporary dinosaurs tends to argue against the idea that a T. rex was a scaled up version of, say, a deinonychus or other raptor. This however is a logical fallacy, because the bone structure of a lion is not that of a cheetah, and yet lions are indeed active hunters. *shrug* Arguing that because a T. rex couldn't run 100mph it couldn't be a predator doesn't make sense, because there's no proof that T. rex's prey were zooming along at highway speeds either. A good 20 minutes of the hour long show was devoted to arguing that T. rex wasn't built for predation using the aforementioned lack of sustainable running speed. Ignoring evidence that the T. rex's tail and spine were designed to give the body more bounce, an important feature if you are going to cover distance in a short time (cheetah spines are designed to provide a spring-like flex for much the same reason). But for the moment let's allow thaT. rex wasn't running down his prey and chomping on them... We'll move on to the next part of this argument:
Because T. rex's arms were mere stumps, they were useless in hunting (unlike the aforementioned raptors who had rather substantial front claws).
This was about the point where I started getting annoyed with the manner of his theorizing, because it ignores any sort of rational explanation for the lack of necessity of large front claws. When you have a head full of foot long sharpened teeth and a jaw that could snap a tree in half, do you really need to have menacing front claws too? The animal world is chock full of examples of naturally occurring efficiency, and at the size of a T. rex the smaller front legs would have gotten in the way and been likely to break if the Rex was involved in any sort of scuffle, the 'need' to have them ignores so much evidence of other examples of specially designed predators I was starting to fume on the couch. *grrr*
The theory further hypothesized that T. rex wouldn't have been able to regain his footing if he were to fall during a run (due in part to essentially not having arms). *boggle* Really? REALLY? o_O Forgetting for a moment that I find it ludicrous that such a clumsy plodding creature (sarcasm) could have survived for SEVERAL MILLION YEARS (you'd think the prey might have devised a clever "trip the big oaf so he falls down and dies" defense, right?). We're talking a massive muscled creature that's probably not made out of paper mache, likely pretty thick-skinned, flexible, and strong. I'm pretty sure a T. rex could figure out SOME way of getting back on its feet if it managed to trip and fall.
The final 'design flaw' of T. rex were its teeth apparently, which according to him weren't 'laterally compressed' like those of the various raptor species. They were larger and more pointed and therefore not designed to hunt and kill.
Because as we ALL know, Crocodilians don't have peg-like teeth designed to puncture and hold prey... oh wait... :P
A lot of Dr. Horner's arguments stem from the school of "Other dinosaurs have X attribute, and they do Y, T. rex does not have X attribute, therefore T. rex could not do Y". Apparently Dr. Horner skipped logic 101. :P
Then about 2/3 of the way through the show (it hopped back and forth between the "science" and the fossil hunting in some valley in the Midwest I think), he pulls out the CONCLUSIVE evidence that T. rex must have been a scavenger:
Because T. rex's brain pan had significantly more space dedicated to olfactory senses, and very little devoted to eyesight, it must have behaved like a buzzard and eaten only carcasses.
At this point I'm pretty much ready to give this man a prize in the conclusion-jump Olympics, because again while it's certainly POSSIBLE, the evidence of a keen sense of smell does NOT indicate scavenger tendancies. Dogs in particular have a HUGE portion of their brains devoted to their sense of smell, and yet they are PERFECTLY capable of hunting and killing their prey too. In fact, I actually started talking back to the TV (yes, I know, but YOU ALL DO IT TOO) when he started talking about scavengers and mentions hyenas (who are in fact VERY successful predators in their own right thankyouverymuch!). He may know stuff about dinosaurs, but he seems to need a few refresher courses in modern-day animals.
Now some of the things he patently ignored in his theorizing:
1) T. rex were damn HUGE to be strictly necrophagous (scavengers). The amount of dead animals lying around would have to have been pretty extreme and damned convenient to keep any population of creatures THAT size around. Not to mention their size is disproportionate to their prey EVEN considering some of the massive sauropods running around at the time. Also, as more evidence points to dinosaurs being 'warm blooded' to some extent, they would have required FAR more caloric intake than mere scavenging would provide.
2) T. rex had eyes which gave it good stereoscopic vision. This is a feature most often found in creatures needing to be able to judge distances for hunting, the argument that vultures also have stereoscopic vision is fine, but one must also realize that vultures hunt from the air, and need to spot their meals from 3,000 - 4,000 meters away. On the ground, stereoscopic vision in scavengers becomes far less useful...
3) There IS evidence of T. rex attack injuries on more and more of the fossil record. Several other researchers, in the past decade, have found evidence of ante-mortem rex bites.
Now, here, let me toss out a theory that takes into account Dr. Horner's theories on the physiology of T. rex AND YET still comes up with T. rex being a predator:
Perhaps, just perhaps, T. rex was a kind of ambush hunter.
I know, it seems ridiculous that something the size of a walking schoolbus could ambush ANYTHING, but consider this: What if T. rex was a predator in much the same way a Komodo Dragon is a predator? With a mouth siwmming with deadly toxins from being a carnivore (yes, most modern reptilian predators actually have very toxic bites in the wild because of this) it only has to deliver one or two good bites and then it can follow its prey (with its amazing sense of smell) for days if necessary until it dies, then tuck in for a nice meal once its victim has keeled over from being poisoned with various diseases. There are also several differnt theories as to what the flora of the time actually looked like and how much of it there was, so a T. rex could have been hiding in the bushes/trees waiting for a victim to pass through, and then lunge out and bite them and let them go run off and die.
See? I just came up with a predatory conclusion using all of Dr. Horner's evidence.
Where's my TV show and grant funding to research this? :P
I watched a show ("Valley of the T. rex" if I remember correctly) featuring Dr. Jack Horner, a longtime proponent of the idea that T. rex HAD to have been a scavenger rather than a predator. In it, he provides large portions of evidence that points to the unavoidable conclusion that T. rex must have been a scavenger.
Except I, a lowly layperson, kept poking holes in his theories left, right, and center.
Pardon me while I put on my "I coulda been a scientist" cap for a second here. Dinosaurs have always fascinated me, as have the myriad of creatures in the animal kingdom, past and present.
Dr. Horner's arguments are interesting theories, but there's plenty of room for counterargument. One of his arguments is that T. rex simply was too slow and fragile(?!) to actively hunt.
Yes, bone structure analysis of other contemporary dinosaurs tends to argue against the idea that a T. rex was a scaled up version of, say, a deinonychus or other raptor. This however is a logical fallacy, because the bone structure of a lion is not that of a cheetah, and yet lions are indeed active hunters. *shrug* Arguing that because a T. rex couldn't run 100mph it couldn't be a predator doesn't make sense, because there's no proof that T. rex's prey were zooming along at highway speeds either. A good 20 minutes of the hour long show was devoted to arguing that T. rex wasn't built for predation using the aforementioned lack of sustainable running speed. Ignoring evidence that the T. rex's tail and spine were designed to give the body more bounce, an important feature if you are going to cover distance in a short time (cheetah spines are designed to provide a spring-like flex for much the same reason). But for the moment let's allow thaT. rex wasn't running down his prey and chomping on them... We'll move on to the next part of this argument:
Because T. rex's arms were mere stumps, they were useless in hunting (unlike the aforementioned raptors who had rather substantial front claws).
This was about the point where I started getting annoyed with the manner of his theorizing, because it ignores any sort of rational explanation for the lack of necessity of large front claws. When you have a head full of foot long sharpened teeth and a jaw that could snap a tree in half, do you really need to have menacing front claws too? The animal world is chock full of examples of naturally occurring efficiency, and at the size of a T. rex the smaller front legs would have gotten in the way and been likely to break if the Rex was involved in any sort of scuffle, the 'need' to have them ignores so much evidence of other examples of specially designed predators I was starting to fume on the couch. *grrr*
The theory further hypothesized that T. rex wouldn't have been able to regain his footing if he were to fall during a run (due in part to essentially not having arms). *boggle* Really? REALLY? o_O Forgetting for a moment that I find it ludicrous that such a clumsy plodding creature (sarcasm) could have survived for SEVERAL MILLION YEARS (you'd think the prey might have devised a clever "trip the big oaf so he falls down and dies" defense, right?). We're talking a massive muscled creature that's probably not made out of paper mache, likely pretty thick-skinned, flexible, and strong. I'm pretty sure a T. rex could figure out SOME way of getting back on its feet if it managed to trip and fall.
The final 'design flaw' of T. rex were its teeth apparently, which according to him weren't 'laterally compressed' like those of the various raptor species. They were larger and more pointed and therefore not designed to hunt and kill.
Because as we ALL know, Crocodilians don't have peg-like teeth designed to puncture and hold prey... oh wait... :P
A lot of Dr. Horner's arguments stem from the school of "Other dinosaurs have X attribute, and they do Y, T. rex does not have X attribute, therefore T. rex could not do Y". Apparently Dr. Horner skipped logic 101. :P
Then about 2/3 of the way through the show (it hopped back and forth between the "science" and the fossil hunting in some valley in the Midwest I think), he pulls out the CONCLUSIVE evidence that T. rex must have been a scavenger:
Because T. rex's brain pan had significantly more space dedicated to olfactory senses, and very little devoted to eyesight, it must have behaved like a buzzard and eaten only carcasses.
At this point I'm pretty much ready to give this man a prize in the conclusion-jump Olympics, because again while it's certainly POSSIBLE, the evidence of a keen sense of smell does NOT indicate scavenger tendancies. Dogs in particular have a HUGE portion of their brains devoted to their sense of smell, and yet they are PERFECTLY capable of hunting and killing their prey too. In fact, I actually started talking back to the TV (yes, I know, but YOU ALL DO IT TOO) when he started talking about scavengers and mentions hyenas (who are in fact VERY successful predators in their own right thankyouverymuch!). He may know stuff about dinosaurs, but he seems to need a few refresher courses in modern-day animals.
Now some of the things he patently ignored in his theorizing:
1) T. rex were damn HUGE to be strictly necrophagous (scavengers). The amount of dead animals lying around would have to have been pretty extreme and damned convenient to keep any population of creatures THAT size around. Not to mention their size is disproportionate to their prey EVEN considering some of the massive sauropods running around at the time. Also, as more evidence points to dinosaurs being 'warm blooded' to some extent, they would have required FAR more caloric intake than mere scavenging would provide.
2) T. rex had eyes which gave it good stereoscopic vision. This is a feature most often found in creatures needing to be able to judge distances for hunting, the argument that vultures also have stereoscopic vision is fine, but one must also realize that vultures hunt from the air, and need to spot their meals from 3,000 - 4,000 meters away. On the ground, stereoscopic vision in scavengers becomes far less useful...
3) There IS evidence of T. rex attack injuries on more and more of the fossil record. Several other researchers, in the past decade, have found evidence of ante-mortem rex bites.
Now, here, let me toss out a theory that takes into account Dr. Horner's theories on the physiology of T. rex AND YET still comes up with T. rex being a predator:
Perhaps, just perhaps, T. rex was a kind of ambush hunter.
I know, it seems ridiculous that something the size of a walking schoolbus could ambush ANYTHING, but consider this: What if T. rex was a predator in much the same way a Komodo Dragon is a predator? With a mouth siwmming with deadly toxins from being a carnivore (yes, most modern reptilian predators actually have very toxic bites in the wild because of this) it only has to deliver one or two good bites and then it can follow its prey (with its amazing sense of smell) for days if necessary until it dies, then tuck in for a nice meal once its victim has keeled over from being poisoned with various diseases. There are also several differnt theories as to what the flora of the time actually looked like and how much of it there was, so a T. rex could have been hiding in the bushes/trees waiting for a victim to pass through, and then lunge out and bite them and let them go run off and die.
See? I just came up with a predatory conclusion using all of Dr. Horner's evidence.
Where's my TV show and grant funding to research this? :P