Without being too technical, I want to mention the idea of niches and diversity. All plants are not trees. They range from one celled organisms to the giant redwoods. They live in deserts, in the ocean, in hot springs, etc. They find different ways to survive and reproduce. Animals, too. It isn't just a race to be the biggest.
BTW, Digit, I agree with your expression of the difficulty of carrying on a reasonable discussion with m. To find the nuggets of truth in his remarks you really have do discard a lot of B.S. and tortured reasoning. His "age-ism" gettin' old too. You have been very patient.
Evolutionary news
Moderators: MichelleH, Minimalist, JPeters
Exactly Stan, I made a pretty hasty post earlier, and nothing about life on earth is that simple.Without being too technical, I want to mention the idea of niches and diversity. All plants are not trees. They range from one celled organisms to the giant redwoods. They live in deserts, in the ocean, in hot springs, etc. They find different ways to survive and reproduce. Animals, too. It isn't just a race to be the biggest.
Cheers Stan. People tend not to have too much interest in plants, they are not furry or cuddly etc, and one of my interests is plants and how they interact with each other, how they defend themselves and so on.
Apart from food plants most people are not interested and I doubt that you could raise grants to study non-economic plants.
I noted on an earlier post that TV programme here recently stated that Apatosaurus spent every waking eating, even laying its eggs 'on the run', I think a study of plant nutrition is called for there, don't you think?
Apart from food plants most people are not interested and I doubt that you could raise grants to study non-economic plants.
I noted on an earlier post that TV programme here recently stated that Apatosaurus spent every waking eating, even laying its eggs 'on the run', I think a study of plant nutrition is called for there, don't you think?
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marduk
so you were incapable of reading all the links i posted tooBTW, Digit, I agree with your expression of the difficulty of carrying on a reasonable discussion with m. To find the nuggets of truth in his remarks you really have do discard a lot of B.S.
and you accuse me of ageism
hows that
i dont know how old you are
i dont care how old roy is
what I care about is the truth
if you can't comprehend it then don't accuse me of b.s.
clearly this is the third time you have posted something off topic against me without contributing to the thread in any fashion
so really
b.s. is your domain and you're welcome to it
the facts are mine and I have posted them
I can not believe that an animal would grow so large that it would need to spend so much time eating that it couldn't even stop searching for food long enough to lay its eggs, if they laid eggs of course.
Much debate has gone into the peg like teeth of some Dinos and their inability to stop munching, it's been around at least as long as I have.
If a fraction of the time and money that has gone into digging up Dinos went into finding out for certain what they ate I suspect that it might be somewhat more nutritious than the Pine needles that I have seen proposed as their main source of food.
Elephants seem to spend the greatest amount of time eating of modern species, but even they can take a break.
Peg like teeth certainly seem more suited to stripping than chewing, but I can't see that means Pine needles, many softer, more edible plants may not, yet, have shown up, if they ever will, in the fossil record, but I suspect that they were there.
Years ago the assumed hunting ground for these animal was wetlands, and their peg like teeth would have been suitable for handling softer water plants, so who knows.
But all day eating? I suspect not.
Much debate has gone into the peg like teeth of some Dinos and their inability to stop munching, it's been around at least as long as I have.
If a fraction of the time and money that has gone into digging up Dinos went into finding out for certain what they ate I suspect that it might be somewhat more nutritious than the Pine needles that I have seen proposed as their main source of food.
Elephants seem to spend the greatest amount of time eating of modern species, but even they can take a break.
Peg like teeth certainly seem more suited to stripping than chewing, but I can't see that means Pine needles, many softer, more edible plants may not, yet, have shown up, if they ever will, in the fossil record, but I suspect that they were there.
Years ago the assumed hunting ground for these animal was wetlands, and their peg like teeth would have been suitable for handling softer water plants, so who knows.
But all day eating? I suspect not.
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marduk
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Forum Monk
- Posts: 1999
- Joined: Wed Dec 27, 2006 5:37 pm
- Location: USA
A couple of points here.Digit wrote:I can not believe that an animal would grow so large that it would need to spend so much time eating that it couldn't even stop searching for food long enough to lay its eggs, if they laid eggs of course.
Much debate has gone into the peg like teeth of some Dinos and their inability to stop munching, it's been around at least as long as I have.
If a fraction of the time and money that has gone into digging up Dinos went into finding out for certain what they ate I suspect that it might be somewhat more nutritious than the Pine needles that I have seen proposed as their main source of food.
Elephants seem to spend the greatest amount of time eating of modern species, but even they can take a break.
Peg like teeth certainly seem more suited to stripping than chewing, but I can't see that means Pine needles, many softer, more edible plants may not, yet, have shown up, if they ever will, in the fossil record, but I suspect that they were there.
Years ago the assumed hunting ground for these animal was wetlands, and their peg like teeth would have been suitable for handling softer water plants, so who knows.
But all day eating? I suspect not.
I assume the things stopped grazing long enough to sleep.
Second, teeth shape I suppose is critical when looking at some species today and their behaviours. Cattle seem to graze for short periods, and can cut grass off without a lot of tearing. Conversely, horses graze nearly continuously, tear grass off very low to the ground, grind instead of chew. It seems most of their grazing is more of a social activity than a survival strategy.
Yeah, I remember when I was a kid the classic picture of a dinosaur was Brontosaurus standing in a swamp. Completely bare and gray, and cold blooded too.Digit wrote:I can not believe that an animal would grow so large that it would need to spend so much time eating that it couldn't even stop searching for food long enough to lay its eggs, if they laid eggs of course.
Much debate has gone into the peg like teeth of some Dinos and their inability to stop munching, it's been around at least as long as I have.
If a fraction of the time and money that has gone into digging up Dinos went into finding out for certain what they ate I suspect that it might be somewhat more nutritious than the Pine needles that I have seen proposed as their main source of food.
Elephants seem to spend the greatest amount of time eating of modern species, but even they can take a break.
Peg like teeth certainly seem more suited to stripping than chewing, but I can't see that means Pine needles, many softer, more edible plants may not, yet, have shown up, if they ever will, in the fossil record, but I suspect that they were there.
Years ago the assumed hunting ground for these animal was wetlands, and their peg like teeth would have been suitable for handling softer water plants, so who knows.
But all day eating? I suspect not.
We've come a long way, and some of the newest theories are really neat - like having a coat of down like modern chicks have.
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Forum Monk
- Posts: 1999
- Joined: Wed Dec 27, 2006 5:37 pm
- Location: USA
Another consideration for these type of grazers or foragers is the quality of the habitat. Large animals can strip a field in a short time, leaving behind bare dirt. This is seen in cases of horses and pigs today. They can totally strip a pasture. In the case of a 2000lb horse, one needs two acres of pasture to support it.
Image the habitat required to support a herd of animals the size you are talking. And they are competing with other animals as well. They would have to be constantly moving just find supportable habitat. They could eat themselve into extinction.
Image the habitat required to support a herd of animals the size you are talking. And they are competing with other animals as well. They would have to be constantly moving just find supportable habitat. They could eat themselve into extinction.
Yep, it seems many dinosaurs were migratory, iirc, FM.Forum Monk wrote:Another consideration for these type of grazers or foragers is the quality of the habitat. Large animals can strip a field in a short time, leaving behind bare dirt. This is seen in cases of horses and pigs today. They can totally strip a pasture. In the case of a 2000lb horse, one needs two acres of pasture to support it.
Image the habitat required to support a herd of animals the size you are talking. And they are competing with other animals as well. They would have to be constantly moving just find supportable habitat. They could eat themselve into extinction.