Ausarchosaur

My understanding is that if a snake is confronted by a mongoose that is resistant to its venom, its best chance is to deliver a huge dose in the right part of the body to have a lethal effect. Not favorable odds, but not impossible either.

That and also simply escaping (somehow).

Animal cruelty, tolerance for invasive species, and just general lack of understanding of animal ecology and behavior are ripe on Twitter. I don’t know how so many people have the patience and tolerance to address it regularly.

The music gives off an eery vibe, John Hurt is explaining co-extinction between giant theropods and giant sauropod prey, and the symbolism of the Mapusaurus walking off into the distance when there is no food left from the Argentinosaurus.

Since The Dinosaurs is coming in two days, I’m gonna show appreciation for a dino doc I rarely talk about: Planet Dinosaur.

This ending bit for one of the episodes was something I really liked.

I recently watched an edit of The Rite of Spring (from Fantasia) where the music was replaced with sfx. It…stirred something in me.

I think The Dinosaurs comes out the day I present my Master’s thesis…it’s going to be a heck of a day.

The semicircular arc-shaped bite marks definitely don’t match orcas or Pseudorca.

https://cascadiaresearch.org/hawaii-update/updates-our-julyaugust-2010-hawaii-field-work/

https://www.fearbeneath.com/2009/12/shark-snacks-on-false-killer-whale/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3929637/

https://wwhandbook.iwc.int/en/species/false-killer-whale

There is evidence of Pseudorca being attacked/preyed on by large sharks. Individuals have been found with shark bite injuries and maybe-shark bite injuries.

The idea that smooth-edged teeth were only for the likes of fish always felt like an underestimation of their potency too. They may not be as efficient as serrated ones, but it’s still a sharp edge, and these sharks could clearly produce the force necessary to cut flesh with them.

Walking with…

Refs:
- www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
- www.app.pan.pl/archive/publ...

We know that serrated teeth are not required for sharks to prey on relatively large marine tetrapods. Really wondering if all this time Late Cretaceous apex predator sharks just went "fuck it we ball" with their smooth-edged teeth and butchered marine reptiles with them.

Cretalamna went on to (probably) evolve into Otodus, which later evolved serrations. Carcharodon independently evolved serrated teeth too. But it's interesting that the Late Cretaceous apex predatory sharks never bothered unlike Cenozoic ones.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MenuhaCretoxyrhinaMantelli.jpg

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-paleontology/article/morphology-and-paleobiology-of-the-late-cretaceous-largesized-shark-cretodus-crassidens-dixon-1850-neoselachii-lamniformes/A670012A44DDC68FC098BB8C73368408

Photo by Mason Hintermeister: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Archaeolamna.jpg

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Otodontid-shark-Cretalamna-appendiculata-Agassiz-1843-upper-jaw-teeth-Tourtia-de_fig2_271354775

Something I find interesting is that although Cretoxyrhina, Cretodus, Archaeolamna, and some populations of Cretalamna were found to have occupied apex predator niches of very high trophic levels, NONE of them had serrations on their teeth.

Forgot to mention odontocetes, especially orcas. Orcas are basically balls to walls bonkers predatory synapsids, yet most of what I say about them isn’t gushing over them, it’s having to debunk morons who embellish/put them on a pedestal over other aquatic predators.

This is not me saying these traits make them "superior" to earlier non-mammalian synapsid predators btw, just pointing out what clearly distinguishes them while being formidable predators from the same larger clade.

Put another way, I get annoyed with big cat or bear fans. At the same time I sort of I see a big cat or bear as basically a gorgonopsid if it had fully erect legs, fur, indubitable endothermy, and relatively large brains (may still have its saber teeth if it's a machairodont).

*May or may not be in relation to non-mammalian ones

I kind of dislike the fact that I'm often compelled to debunk misconceptions or embellishments r.e. mammalian predators*. Because at the end of the day, they're predatory synapsids in the same vein as these extinct, exotic gorgonopsids and other proto-mammals that I adore.

Took my unexpected chance to get this at the bookstore today

Ladies, gentlemen, and non-binary folks, I present to you the Reptimax Rubidgea (black) and Inostrancevia (red)!

“Yeah I’ll totally be a crocodile!”

“You’re actually going to be a yacare caiman”

“I’ll have no natural predators!”

“…”

I recently saw some really nice sculpts of Pleistocene Brazilian hunter-gatherers on Instagram. Now, I wish I could order from these vendors in general, but I also wish there were more, higher quality prehistoric human figures out there. But I understand why there aren’t.

If 6-8 orcas get exhausted trying to kill a blue whale that doesn't even fight back when under attack and need replacements to fill in for them, how the hell are 3 going to defeat a healthy adult shark that's so much bigger than themselves that it could consider them *prey*?

There was an incident where 75 orcas took 3 hours to kill a 16 meter blue whale. The reason they needed that many was that a cohort of 6-8 orcas would attack the whale at any given time, then another would take their place after the first cohort got exhausted. It's a matter of endurance.

We still have two episodes left, but man Primal S3 has been SOOOO wonderful thus far.

Wait for better conditions (more sunlight/visibility) to return I suppose

Ironically this same guy was arguing for orca superiority over extinct apex predators. It was when he said that three orcas would beat a megalodon (and the ensuing “mackerel sharks aren’t very smart”) that I quit.

Leasing office: “Oh we refused your package because it needed to be signed”

Delivery service: “No it didn’t”

References:
- www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
- connectsci.au/mf/article-a...