throopw@rtp47.UUCP (Wayne Throop) (09/14/85)
This article is inspired by the assertion that the larger sauropod dinosaurs were simply too large to have been adapted for existance in a 1-G gravity field. While thinking about why sauropods are as large as they are, and why evolution would have favored such outrageous size, I had a (perhaps original) thought. I seem to recall that many of the "lower" creatures, (especially sea-borne ones, but some land-borne also) grow "without limit" as long as they live. That is, they grow until the square-cube limitations of their design kills them off, or they die for other reasons. They have no particular point where they stop growing in a completed, "adult" size. Now, could (some of) the dinosaurs have had this property, and lacked a fixed "adult" size? Then, given good conditions, a sauropod (if it lived long enough) would grow to the point where it could barely walk, and the fact that the poor reptile is essentially cripled at such a large size would say relatively little about the adaptation of the species as a whole (as long as it has had the opportunity to reproduce before getting too large). I guess I am proposing that size is to sauropods what age is to humans. After all, if you look at an average 80-year old man, you'd say he simply couldn't compete (physically) in earth-like conditions. Perhaps the larger sauropod finds are a similar phenomenon. So, does anybody know what size distribution sauropod (and other extremely large) fossils show? Do sauropod "frequency vs size at death" curves look similar to human "frequency vs age at death" curves? Is this the appropriate "prediction" to use to test such a hypothesis? -- Note: followup-to net.bio -- Wayne Throop at Data General, RTP, NC <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti-sel!rtp47!throopw