From: J Corbally (icorb@indigo.ie)
Date: Wed Sep 25 2002 - 15:16:55 MDT
My understanding is that current research points to environmental change
making Megalocerus unsustainable on such a small land mass. The largest
animal these days is a species of deer ISTR; the largest carnivore is the fox.
James....
>Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2002 10:02:43 -0700
>From: Charles Hixson <charleshixsn@earthlink.net>
>Subject: Re: Flies-Faith-Fantasy
>spike66 wrote:
> > ...
> > The next interesting thing is that perhaps the
> > big-heads developed intelligence far beyond the
> > optimum for survival of the genome. If humans were
> > just a little dumber, perhaps they never would have
> > developed nukes. (I am going meta here, by referring
> > to humans as "they".) Humans may then face the same
> > unfortunate fate as the Irish elk, which evidently
> > liked their mates with huge antlers; so large they
> > could not support the weight of the male as they
> > mounted during copulation, thus becoming extinct.
> > This would be a sad thing indeed, were I not in meta
> > mode currently.
> >
> > http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mammal/artio/irishelk.html
> >
> > spike
> >
>I truly doubt that evolutionary "just so story". I've heard it
>presented as fact, but as far as I can tell nobody has any evidence to
>back this up. And I don't think that it holds up theoretically.
>Evolution doesn't work like that. Female choice can cause the antlers
>to increase tremendously, but not so much that reproduction becomes
>impossible. Population variability would prevent that. I suspect
>either climate variation, or new predators (including diseases among the
>predators).
>- --
>- -- Charles Hixson
>Gnu software that is free,
>The best is yet to be.
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and
crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures
to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid."
-Q, Star Trek:TNG episode 'Q Who'
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