I <3 paleontology

[tsaiko]

Sabertooth tigers hunted in packs.

True story: we were discussing the Rancho La Brea fauna in my Terrestrial paleo class. In particular, we were discussing how Smilodon brought down its prey. I forgot what prompted the comment, but my professor made the following remark:

"Well obviously they were going after big prey. You wouldn't expect to see a sabertooth cat lunge after a bunny. It's teeth would be stuck in the ground and the bunny would just hop out between them."

I loved my paleo classes. These are the same classes that produced the "Oh shit!" turtle story and the "Man, if only I have 20 hours in a day" line.

Comments

[lighthawk.livejournal.com]

I want to hear this "Oh shit!" turtle story and the context from the 20 hour a day line.

GIVE ME!

This is not a request!

[tanarill.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah. I have been saying for years that smilodon was too big not to hunt in prides. The sheer caloric requirement would mean that each individual would have to sucessfully bring down an animal once every few days - every day if there were young to raise - or there was a social group on which to rely.

Once again, I am psychic in the ways of science!

[tsaiko.livejournal.com]

I don't know if I agree with that train of thought. Keep in mind that when Smilodon was around, prey was huge. We're talking about several types of mammoths, mastodons, ground sloths larger than bears, bison 25% larger than what's seen today, horses and large camels just in North America (not even counting rhinos, large deer, and other animals roaming around Europe at that point). And Smilodons were designed specifically to bring down large prey. Even if they were larger in size, I think with solitary hunting they could have easily brought down enough food to meet caloric intakes. After all, tigers do it and they do it on much smaller prey than Smilodons.

What I think should have been their big clue to the fact that Smilodon hunted in prides was the fact that 1/3 of the fossils they were pulling from the tar pits was Smilodon. There is simply no way a solitary hunter is going to compromise that much of your fossil record. especially since your number 1 fossil is dire wolf (pack hunters) and your third most common fossil is coyote (probably acting as scavengers).

I would love to know the prevalence of known large, solitary hunting felines in the tarpits. Stuff like bobcat and cougar since we can't be sure of about the hunting habits American lions, scimitar-toothed cats and Miracinonyx.

[tanarill.livejournal.com]

Really? I seem to remember reading somewhere that they lived right on the edge of their environment's ability to support them, and when the ice age ended and the Californian plains dried out, there wasn't enough food so they staaaaaarved.

Also that humans were a big part of the reason that they aren't still around. I love the way we give a shit about this kind of thing about ten thousand years too late.

[tsaiko.livejournal.com]

Well there's a lot of debate as to what actually took out the larger animals. There's climate change, but Smilodon fatalis had been around for 1.5 million years at that point. It had already gone through several glacial/interglacial cycles as had most of the megafauna. Yeah the California plains dried out, but it wasn't the first time. What the heck was it that bumped them off the last time?

People probably. People come into an area and the first thing that happens is that most of the big species go extinct. You see this in Europe, Australia, South America, North America, and Africa to an extent.

So as it got warmer and the plants shifted, the larger animals were under pressure. People put added pressure on them, and they died off. Since Smilodon was so specialized - really, when the heck else is it going to eat with teeth like that but the large animals? - it died as well. I don't think it was necessarily "living on the edge" the whole 1.5 million years it was around.

[tanarill.livejournal.com]

That makes sense. I will go with that.

It reminds me of a poem I once wrote. The relevant lines are:

Man got to the
place where he could afford to be selfless
by climbing the stacked bones
of other species. Millions of years of them.

[jaysons-lady.livejournal.com]

We had dire wolves? Really? I thought that was just a D&D thing.

[rappleart3.livejournal.com]

dude, sounds like an amazing class. I wish we had something like that here, but then again that sounds like a grad level course and I'm not there yet. Ah well. That reminds me, I ended up signing up for Remote Sensing. It was either that or paleoethnobotany. I'm sure you can appreciate the boringness of paleoethno... *shudder*

[tsaiko.livejournal.com]

I think it was a dual grad/undergrad level course. But it was so much fun. So many fun quotes and stories like "This is a eurypterid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurypterid). They were around when things first started coming out onto land and grew up to six and a half feet long. If that was in the water, I'd go up on land too."

Yeah for Remote Sensing. I hope you get as much out of it as I did.

[rappleart3.livejournal.com]

hm, you;re doing your grad in it? Somehow I don't think I will, but I will try.

Hm, I've got some funny quotes from profs, too. You;d probably get more of them, too, since you have a bit of background in archaeological things, sorta.
Go here (http://nottaspace.com/notta) the click links at the top and then the funny quotes thing. I find them all at least pretty funny XD

[theotherdibbler.livejournal.com]

You make me miss uni. :(