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From Carnivore to Herbivore
smooth wombat wrote in to mention an a recent discovery in the field of evolutionary biology. From the article: "A surprising discovery in Utah has paleontologists scratching their heads and asking: Why would a carnivore evolve a herbivorous diet? The species, christened Falcarius utahensis, belongs to a dinosaur group called the therizinosauroids. These are mostly thought to have been plant eaters. But the recently discovered fossil, the most primitive therizinosauroid found so far, seems to have survived on a mixed diet of meat and vegtables...The switch to vegetarianism is surprising, says Paul Barrett, who studies dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum in London. The therizinosauroids belong to a larger group of dinosaurs known as theropods, and many of these are known to have been excellent at catching a meaty meal. "
Maybe the designer wasn't so intelligent after all, seeing as how he kept changing his mind.
After all, I am strangely colored.
The next time somebody waxes on about the virtues of the Atkin's Diet I can tell them that even the dinosaurs got sick of it.
Making the moon less necessary since 1998.
Not just vegetarian, but omnivorous.
"Although the team cannot know whether Falcarius was a committed vegetarian - it may have eaten a bit of meat, too - its emergence did coincide neatly with the evolution of flowering plants."
Why evolve to eat plants and animals? I dunno, but it works for me too!
"At the same time Falcarius appeared, the world was changing greatly because flowering plants were appearing," Dr Sampson said. "They would have provided a new food source. It could be that Falcarius was exploiting an open ecological niche."
In biology class, one of the things you learn is that plants have the most energy-to-size ratio (i forget the actual term). Then you have the primary group of animals (cows, rabbits, anything that eats plants), then the first tier of carnivores (animals that eat the plant eaters), then you have another tier that eats the first tier of carnivores (us, generally).
As you go up the food chain, you get less energy from the meat.
So perhaps this animal simply decided that munching on grass was more efficient than killing a T-rex?
Josh
hookers and grits.
I didn't know PETA has been around that long...
Furthermore, the chain for a carnivore is simply longer by one (plants->herbivores->carnivore)
The Raven
Am I the only one that saw the headline and thought of a new FBI internet tap with a friendly plant-like image?
Potatoes don't run fast or put up much of a fight.
A given amount of land can support more grazers than carnivores.
Switching to an omnivorous diet means that there will be more of them.
Humans, incidentally, have been natural herbivores for hundreds of thousands of years -- one can live longer and healthier as a vegetarian than as a carnivore strictly speaking. But we are considered omnivores because our bodies can tolerate meat as well as plant matter. It is not surprising to see a similar evolution taking place in other species as well; what is surprising is our relative level of resistance to this fact.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
That's not quite how it works. Plants have to photosynthesize enough to grow and maintain "operations," herbivores have to eat enough plants to grow and maintain "operations," etc. Eventually a top predator is ultimately eating a lot of plants more because there are a lot of middlemen.
As you go up the food chain, you get less energy from the meat.
There's generally more energy in meat, and it's denser so you spend a lot less time eating meat calories. Of course, finding and killing that meat is a different story. I expect the answer to our question is one of relative scarcity or competitive ability - perhaps a different predator took away the market?
But it's not one of energy density, most definitely.
No mammal or reptile is strictly a "vegetarian". None of these animals can convert cellulose into glucose, they ALL require bacteria to do this for them. It is obvious why some animals evolved to eat plants: there simply wasn't enough meat available for them to consume. Over time, their bodies evolved adaptions such as larger and multiple stomachs to regulate the gas biproducts of bacterial decomposition of cellulose. This is why humans have to cook their food, we simply cannot survive on a truly natural vegetarian diet. Our stomachs are too small.
Without exception, all animals can eat meat. Even the cow retains the ability to produce bile acids to break down fat, the primary source of energy for most predator mammals.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
Which is the ultimate joke seeing as how we were made in his image, yet considering all our views on the subject obviously not his sense of humour.
Holy mental seg. fault batman.
-Matt
--- Need web hosting?
Obviously, Falcarius utahensis got a girlfriend.
Tomato and spinach pizza, wtf.
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Now I am not an authority on this, but vitamin B12 is only found in amounts sufficient for our dietary needs in animal products like meat, fish, eggs, and dairy and is essential for proper nervous system function. If you're one of the "strict" vegetarians out there you must supplement your all vegetable diet with B12 or run the risk of developing nerve damage or neurological disease (among other complications). You cannot meet all of your dietary requirements from an all-vegetable diet unless you take supplements.
While I would agree that a vegetarian diet is certainly healthier than what most people eat, the fact is a balanced diet from all the food groups including animal products is not only wise but absolutely necessary for a healthy human body. If my memory of biology class is correct just about every herbivore has to eat an enormous amount of plant material to sustain themselves, with specialized digestive sytems. Why do you think a cow has four stomachs?
I watched my sister fade away on a stict vegan diet and even with supplements it wasn't enough. She re-introduced a weekly serving of meat and noticed a huge improvement in her mood and energy level. Her experience taught me that a balanced diet is more important than focusing on any one particular food group and my diet is the better for it.
Pandas...Nature's koalas