Re: dinosaur fasting ecology

["David Marjanovic" <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

> Many paleontologists are interested in dinosaur feeding. This is typical
> of a consumptionist society. Where overweight is a problem, people look at
> dinosaurs and think: hey, they could eat much more than me and still were
> attractive!

Interesting idea.

> Why hardosaurs nested in colonies, like birds? At first, it is ecological
> impossibility. Bird colonies are located in places inaccessible to
> predators: on treetops, cliffs, islands or swamps. Hardosaurs could not
> hide so easily.

Instead, hardosaurs gave any predator a really hard fight :->
Serious now, the well-known hadrosaurid nesting sites Egg Mountain and Egg
Island were islands in an alkaline lake.

> Galapagos tortoises can fast up to one year, and Nile crocodiles and polar
> bears for several months. If one scales this up, large sauropods might
> survive in the barren desert, if every 2-10 years there was a rainy
> season when animals fed and bred.

You can't scale that up. It works only for ectotherms. Polar bears can fast
that long only when they hibernate.