From: rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu (Mickey Rowe)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Tyrannosaurus Rex and Triceratops
Date: 22 Jul 92 23:57:44 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

In article <664@tdat.teradata.COM> swf@tdat.teradata.com 
     (Stanley Friesen) writes:

>A number of paleontologists have used allometric formulas to estimate the
>top speed for a Tyrannosaurus.  The results have ranged from about 40 mph to 
>over 60 mph (depending on assumptions about muscle bulk and leverage).

While my feeling is that the speeds Stan quotes here are probably the
most accurate, I feel the need to caution that there is at least one
person (R.  McNeil Alexander) who has also made measurements of
Tyrannosaur bones, and calculates that large Tyrannosaurs could only
run about 17 mph.

>Even the *low* estimate is not exactly *slow*.  

Unless you know of some conclusive evidence that Alexander's estimates
are as reputable as the Inimitable One's, I'd say the *low* estimate
*is* pretty slow.

>Yep, Tyrannosaurus was, in my opinion, definately a hunter.  (The cursurial
>adaptions also suggest active hunting).

Anyone wanting to make the case that Tyrannosaurs were merely
scavengers might want to take note of an IMHO good argument against
the possibility.  Scavenging is a poor way to make a living.  The only
large animals that currently eke out a subsistence that way are
vultures.  They can manage it because they have a very efficient means
of surveying large amounts of territory in a very brief period of time
while expending a minimal amount of energy.  Even if a Tyrannosaur
could run 60 mph, he couldn't do it with anywhere near the efficiency
of a soaring vulture.  Energetically, tyrannosaur as scavenger doesn't
make a whole lot of sense.

Oops.  Did I forget about the felt effect of calories? :-)

>|I doubt the carnivores, which appear to have been bird-like, at least 
>|morphologically, were brighter than the sauropods, which appear to have
>|been either mammals, or mammal-like.

Stan, why did you let this pass?  Sauropods were mammals?  Or
mammal-like?  The Inimitable One must be trying to top the stupidity
of his remarks concerning Eric Shafto. 

Perhaps you were doing what I'm about to do.  Ignoring the remark as
too stupid to merit a rebuttal.

...
>Tyrannosaurus did not hunt sauropods because there were nvery few when it
>was alive!  It probably hunted Triceratops, Edmontosaurus, and Anatotitan.
>(The last two were formerly called Anatosaurus).  [Really Ted, can't you
>even get simple chronologies straight, Tyrannosaurus was a Latest
>Cretaceous species, sauropods were most abundant in the Late Jurassic].

There you go with your stupid ideas about uniformitarianism and an
ancient earth :-)  You do know the above paragraph will have little
meaning to a person who thinks that macaques are just a few years away
from developing a language just like ours--something that they only
now need because all of us animals just lost our tremendous telepathic
abilities... don't you?

>sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
>  or
>Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com

Mickey Rowe     (rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu)
Newsgroups: talk.origins,talk.religion.misc,sci.skeptic