Re: On predation.
H. M. Hubey (hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu)
30 Oct 1995 17:42:09 -0500
chris brochu <gator@mail.utexas.edu> writes:
Lots of good reference deleted.
>Sorry - I couldn't find a reference for 20 miles. But will 15 do?
then what? ask for 10? :-).
>In any event, the distance crocs will walk is utterly irrelevant. Let me
>use a highway analogy - suppose you are driving on a highway that forks.
Bad analogy.
What you have is a diffusion process. For land predators the
diffusion is over land. For crocs the diffusion is restricted to
coasts and waterways, a much smaller area. It's as if we are
mapping out a small grid of waterways/highways on land and
allowing diffusion only along these restricted pathways.
the key is the time needed for this kind if diffusion vs unrestricted
diffusion.
>periodically show up in swimming pools. I doubt many of these pools are
>connected to major drainages.
I guess this is related to living near swamps :-)
>The most important point is this - the rapid spread of alligators and
>saltwater crocs with protection virtually falsifies any thought that they
>cannot spread quickly.
See above.
Besides, this has nothing to do with any claims on my part that
the any of the hominoids could have fought of crocs in water.
I'd never claim such a thing and didn't. It had to be someplace
without these crocs and these periods could have occurred during
the periodic desiccation of the African landscape.
--
Regards, Mark
http://www.smns.montclair.edu/~hubey
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