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If Certosaurus were alive in North America today?
Topic Started: Jul 10 2012, 09:41 PM (4,250 Views)
DinosaurMichael
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So I was just wondering, but let's just say if Ceratosaurus were alive today in North America. How well do you see Ceratosaurus being able to survive.

In my opinion it would survive. It be the top predator in North America. It would probably dominate Wolf Packs and Bears over kills. It would also prey on Deer and other herbivores. That's how I see it happening. Then again maybe Ceratosaurus would only survive in the southern United States and Mexico, where there's no snow in the Winter, but would still be enough animals for it to prey on.

What about you guys? What do yout hink. Would it survive or not and if so or not. How would it or why wouldn't it.

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Edited by DinosaurMichael, Jul 11 2012, 03:21 AM.
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Jinfengopteryx
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1. Living later doesn't mean being better!!! Mammals evolved different from dinosaurs, so they're not compareably in evolutionary stages. Ceratosaur wasn't much taller than a human, so it should be small enough:

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2. It was probably a fast runner with air sacks for a high stamina. I don't want to sound like a fanboy, but why shouldn't it be able to catch mooses? It isn't better than modern predators, but it could at least scarevenge.
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SpinoInWonderland
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Ursus arctos
Jul 10 2012, 11:15 PM
Not out-gunned?
Alligators fill an entirely different niche where low metabolism is extremely beneficial, and are very well adapted for it.
Compared to all recently extinct placental carnivores Ceratosaurus is very poorly adapted to the niche of active predator.
Even the basics like binocular vision!
Critically, among modern bird, mammal, reptile, and amphibian species the relative size of the brain is consistently linked to success and failure of becoming an invasive species.

Consider the Great American Interchange where the smaller brained South American wildlife was mostly wiped out by the bigger brained North America.
Or the prevalence of invasive species by region; small brained Australian fauna need human intervention to survive the introduction of larger brained placental mammals.



Consider the red queen hypothesis but related to evolutionary arms races between predators and prey, rather than host and parasite.


I need some substantially stronger evidence than wishful thinking that Ceratosaurus was so cool and badass to fly in the face of all the modern patterns and trends that predict it to be an abysmal failure!
Ceratosaurus would do well in Florida though, there's almost nothing many of the the predators there can do to outcompete it, in fact most of them would be prey, well, except for the black bears, but they wouldn't be much competition considering that they're less than half of Ceratosaurus' size, and their record-breakers are slightly smaller than Ceratosaurus' average. Ceratosaurus also reproduced at a faster rate than black bears do(egg laying takes a much shorter time than pregnancy). Not every North American predator can outcompete Ceratosaurus.

Do black bears even hunt in packs?
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Taipan
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Bacteria, fungi and viruses would wipe Ceratosaurus out.
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DinosaurMichael
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Taipan
Jul 10 2012, 11:44 PM
Bacteria, fungi and viruses would wipe Ceratosaurus out.
There were bacteria, fungi and viruses back where Ceratosaurus lived. So if that's true then all animals today should've died from them.
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Taipan
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DinosaurMichael
Jul 10 2012, 11:46 PM
Taipan
Jul 10 2012, 11:44 PM
Bacteria, fungi and viruses would wipe Ceratosaurus out.
There were bacteria, fungi and viruses back where Ceratosaurus lived. So if that's true then all animals today should've died from them.
Immune systems evolve within species to deal with new bacteria, fungi and viruses. Ceratosaurus' immune system is millions of years out of date, and it would succumb very quickly. I hope you update your computers virus protection, because if you don't your computer will be attacked and destroyed by the everchanging viruses that appear.
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Carcharadon
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It could easily drive wolves and black bears to extinction, since being much bigger and stronger jaws, and simply stealing all of their kills
But people would definetly have to stay out of the woods/forests, so there won't be so much deaths recorded by Ceratosaurus attack.
Edited by Carcharadon, Jul 10 2012, 11:57 PM.
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Jinfengopteryx
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Taipan
Jul 10 2012, 11:44 PM
Bacteria, fungi and viruses would wipe Ceratosaurus out.
Oh, I forgot this, thaks for reminding.
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Ursus arctos
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Ursus arctos
Jul 10 2012, 11:29 PM
Yes, just you and every other poster who voted.
Me and all the scientific research regarding success and failure of species are alone together.
Taipan voted since then, so science has some more company in this debate.

By the way, I wasn't joking.

Starting with the more dissimilar animals, research on reptiles and amphibians:
"Smart Moves: Effects of Relative Brain Size on Establishment Success of Invasive Amphibians and Reptiles", by Joshua J. Amiel, Reid Tingley, and Richard Shine.
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In all but Australia and Oceania were the reptiles and amphibians that invaded larger brained than those that failed to.

Reversal in Australia was attributed to low food, and thus reduced metabolic costs outweighed the cognitive benefits when it came to ability to adapt and survive.
Considering the huge success of placental invaders (and devastation to local marsupials) despite placentals having higher metabolic rates/body mass shows it doesn't hold true for the more active animal groups.


Anyway, moving on:
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Interesting how strong this link is, considering all the other differences between families that you may guess impact the results.

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Birds-most closely related, and more similar than the above in being active endotherms.
"Big brains, enhanced cognition, and response of birds to novel environments" by Daniel Sol, Richard P. Duncan, Tim M. Blackburn, Phillip Cassey, and Louis Lefebvre.
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Similarly, strong relationship considering all the other interfamily differences that must surely be important to their success as species.
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Look under "Estimate".
Unsurprisingly, the size of the initially introduced population (propagule size) and the ability of the invaders to naturally thrive in a huge array of environments were also (more) important to success than relative brain size. Relative brain size was more important than sexual dichromatism, migratory tendency, dietary generalism, annual fecundity, and native geographic range size.
Differences in relative brain size between Ceratosaurus and modern birds are far larger than differences in habitat generalization, etc.
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Mammals, as active terrestrial animals that are much larger than birds and incapable of flight are IMO the best modern analogs of dinosaurs.
"Brain Size Predicts the Success of Mammal Species Introduced into Novel Environments", by Daniel Sol, Sven Bacher, Simon M. Reader, and Louis Lefebvre. Note similarity in authors to the article on birds.
Anyway:
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Brain size> all other factors for explaining success and failure of invasive species. The article on birds only showed the minimum model which eliminated factors found to be of minimal importance-including fecundity, but the article on mammals shows both. High amount of young, mentioned by at least one poster as important, can be seen here as being close to irrelevant compared to relative size of the brain.
Should be obvious, considering how many of the most successful animals today have very low fecundity. And relatively big brains.
Even introduction to the same biome or having been adapted to a wide range of environments=worth very little for predicting how succesful an introduced mammal will be compared to relative brain size.
Sample of mammal introductions used was large (446):
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Taipan, don't forget the animals Tigerburningbright spends most of his time on these forums discussing: ticks and mosquitoes. They both evolved in the Cretacious, so it is likely animals that evolved before modern parasites will not have effective avoidance behaviours let alone countermeasures.





P.S.
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Ceratosaurus magnicornis
324 (or maybe 700) kg: 88 gram brain


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Large canivores of North America, except with leopards substituting for cougars:
Canis lupus
27 kg: 139 gram brain
Panthera pardus
26 kg: 139 gram brain
Panthera onca
24 kg: 152 gram brain
Ursus americanus
100 kg: 238 gram brain
Ursus arctos
146 kg: 302 gram brain
197 kg: 407 gram brain
Ursus maritamus
250 kg: 508 gram brain


So now, what, you'll try and convince me it'll overcome this absurd deficit via its lack of binocular vision? lol
Or maybe that it'll overcome this huge deficit via much larger caloric requirements and much greater difficulty in procuring food. lol
Edited by Ursus arctos, Jul 11 2012, 02:13 AM.
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DinosaurMichael
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Taipan
Jul 10 2012, 11:52 PM
DinosaurMichael
Jul 10 2012, 11:46 PM
Taipan
Jul 10 2012, 11:44 PM
Bacteria, fungi and viruses would wipe Ceratosaurus out.
There were bacteria, fungi and viruses back where Ceratosaurus lived. So if that's true then all animals today should've died from them.
Immune systems evolve within species to deal with new bacteria, fungi and viruses. Ceratosaurus' immune system is millions of years out of date, and it would succumb very quickly. I hope you update your computers virus protection, because if you don't your computer will be attacked and destroyed by the everchanging viruses that appear.
Oh that's a good point, but I don't think it would happen right away. If lucky some would be able to avoid them maybe. But like I've said before. This is my own opinion.
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Superpredator
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I don't think it would be able to survive. For starters, there is a lot of predators out there. Pumas, Wolves, Bears etc. They have all specially evolved to support their niche in the environment. They have good hunting strategies to deal with their prey. Now, put a Ceratosaurus in. Packs of Wolves could scare them away from kills. Bears might be able to as well. These new Carnivores could make the Ceratosaurus frightened. Also, would they be able to keep up with the fast moving prey? Will their strategies be good enough to hunt new prey? Will they be able to survive the cold winters? I think it could have success driving smaller predators to extinction, but the big Carnivores would still exist. I think it would be a matter of time before they die out. Another thing to remember, they haven't evolved to combat the new diseases and would die of them. It is a bad idea to move animals to new habitats IMO.
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DinosaurMichael
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Jul 11 2012, 11:34 AM
I don't think it would be able to survive. For starters, there is a lot of predators out there. Pumas, Wolves, Bears etc. They have all specially evolved to support their niche in the environment. They have good hunting strategies to deal with their prey. Now, put a Ceratosaurus in. Packs of Wolves could scare them away from kills. Bears might be able to as well. These new Carnivores could make the Ceratosaurus frightened. Also, would they be able to keep up with the fast moving prey? Will their strategies be good enough to hunt new prey? Will they be able to survive the cold winters? I think it could have success driving smaller predators to extinction, but the big Carnivores would still exist. I think it would be a matter of time before they die out. Another thing to remember, they haven't evolved to combat the new diseases and would die of them. It is a bad idea to move animals to new habitats IMO.
Just a question. Ceratosaurus lived alongside with Allosaurus and likely didn't fear it. What would give you the idea that Ceratosaurus would get scared of predators smaller than it if Ceratosaurus co-existed with a predator much larger than it back in the Later Jurassic. If anything I think Ceratosuaurus would be the one scaring Wolves even if they were in packs as well as Bears and that's because Ceratosaurus is larger.

As I said just a question and I'll accept your opinion.
Edited by DinosaurMichael, Jul 11 2012, 11:43 AM.
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Superpredator
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Well, Wolves live in large packs. I doubt a Ceratosaurus won't be scared of 10 or so, Wolves snarling at it. And did Ceratosaurus have to come up with a huge, thickly built animal with massive claws?
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DinosaurMichael
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Superpredator
Jul 11 2012, 11:51 AM
Well, Wolves live in large packs. I doubt a Ceratosaurus won't be scared of 10 or so, Wolves snarling at it. And did Ceratosaurus have to come up with a huge, thickly built animal with massive claws?
I would still say even in large packs. Wolves would fear Ceratosaurus due to the fact they've never encountered such a huge carnivore. Good point about the Bear though.
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Superpredator
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Bears are huge too. They are faster and have better weapons, IMO. A Ceratosaurus never saw anything like a Wolf before. And certainly nothing like a Wolf in packs.
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DinosaurMichael
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Jul 11 2012, 11:54 AM
Bears are huge too. They are faster and have better weapons, IMO. A Ceratosaurus never saw anything like a Wolf before. And certainly nothing like a Wolf in packs.
Yet it co-existed with Allosaurus, which was alot bigger and it would probably easily beat Wolves since even in packs were small giving Ceratosaurus an advantage to dominate all of them. But no worries. We've all got our opinions.
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