I was thinking

Rubecula

Yes indeed, an unusual occurrence, but bear with me a moment.

I was thinking about that old idea of going back and saving the dinosaurs from extinction. Then I decided it was a silly idea as then we wouldn't be here and therefore I couldn't go back and save them and then ...... GAAH :eek:

But the thought niggled around a bit. OK just save some dinosaurs. So what species would I save?

Finally I set myself a task. One species each from Land sea and air, to be brought back from the past.

Land first:

First idea was T.rex (of course) But, our Rexy is a big lad, what will he eat? Answer being anything he bloody wants. No that will never do he would go after the best meals and we have too few big animals these days already, what with land encroachment and poaching and such. Don't want to save a species at the cost of a few others, so I am afraid that is out.

A herbivore then? Good idea but which one? Sauropods would be too big and destroy the habitat. Smaller creatures would be small enough to be easy prey for modern predators as they have not evolved the best traits for what we have around now. Something big enough to survive in modern times, but not so big it would wreck the environment. Finally I had it. I chose a Hadrosaur as my Land representative.


Sea next:

Well I love marine life as you may know, so this is easy....... err no it isn't actually. Ichthyosaurs of which there were many species seemed a good idea at first, but what about our whales and dolphins? No the idea is not to out compete what we already have too few of. So the Ichthies are out. Predator X? Mososaur Maximus? Liopleuridon? These evolved into monsters but in the sea I was not at first overly worried by size, yet they evolved in really dangerous seas, they would decimate modern wildlife. No no no. The trouble is that sea creatures are not generally herbivores, so it had to be as harmless to most creatures as possible. Tough one. I almost settled on a long necked pliosaur, it seemed a decent compromise, but then I remembered Archelon. I wish I could chose more than one creature now, But I set myself the task of ONE from each. So it is Archelon I chose to represent sea creatures.

And Air:

This part turned out to be the most tricky. Yes just like T.Rex, I would love to have Quetzalcoatlus, but too big too dangerous and it could easily eat us too. :eek: Maybe a film of it flying will do? But we travel all over the world in aircraft that would look like flying buffets to a biggy like Quetzalcoatlus. So that was out. Smaller creatures would hardly survive in a world dominated by birds, even Bats would be able to give them a hard time in competition I suspect, so the likes of Rhamphorhynchus was therefore put on a back burner. My final choice is not too big (although big) and not to small. Pteranodon longiceps, a more common creature than some others.


Total flight of fancy but I would have Hadrosaur, Archelon and Ptenaodon l.

Any others worth mentioning?

Adam Khor

Rubecula wrote: »

First idea was T.rex (of course) But, our Rexy is a big lad, what will he eat? Answer being anything he bloody wants. No that will never do he would go after the best meals and we have too few big animals these days already, what with land encroachment and poaching and such. Don't want to save a species at the cost of a few others, so I am afraid that is out.

I've read somewhere that a T-Rex could eat its own weight in flesh (and bones) per week. If that was the case, and T-Rex weighed 7 tons (conservative estimate, as some say it was up to 9 tons), that would mean 1 ton, or about 2 cows or horses DAILY.
Since it was used to hunting multiton herbivores that would likely feed it for a while, it would probably be a terrible idea to put a T-Rex in say, Africa, where it would eat all the elephants and rhinos in a very short time. (Its ears were adapted to detect infrasound, which is what elephants, rhinos and giraffes use to communicate over long distances, which means it wouldn´t have any kind of trouble finding them).

Problem is, if you DON´T put T-Rex in Africa (or wherever there's Asian elephants and the like), you can´t put it anywhere, because there's no suitable-sized prey anywhere else. It would start eating monumental amounts of cattle and people until someone decided to get rid of it for good, because we as a rule are not very tolerant of big carnivores eating our proto-burgers (or our children). So yeah, I agree that T-Rex would probably not be the best choice...

Rubecula wrote: »

A herbivore then? Good idea but which one? Sauropods would be too big and destroy the habitat. Smaller creatures would be small enough to be easy prey for modern predators as they have not evolved the best traits for what we have around now. Something big enough to survive in modern times, but not so big it would wreck the environment. Finally I had it. I chose a Hadrosaur as my Land representative.

Good choice... as far as giant dinosaurs go, hadrosaurs seem like the "safer" option, although of course we don´t know how aggressive they were... maybe they, like elephants or wild bovids, would be inclined to attack crops and kill domesticated cattle, which would get them in the same kind of trouble as T-Rex above...

On the other hand, I guess it would be more likely for a hadrosaur to survive (probably) on modern day vegetation, than it would for say, a stegosaur or an iguanodontid, as the vegetation during the latest Cretaceous wasn´t that different from today's.

Ceratopsians were probably every bit as dangerous as rhinos and elephants... On the other hand, what about ankylosaurs? They were usually not as huge as the largest hadrosaurs, and were pretty slow; finding them and herding them back to a hypothetical Dinosaur Preserve would be much easier than finding a bunch of fast-running hadrosaurs.
Sure, they would be dangerous, but only if you got too close...

Also, ankylosaurs would be pretty much safe from modern day predators as adults, what with the armor and all that.

Rubecula wrote: »

Well I love marine life as you may know, so this is easy....... err no it isn't actually. Ichthyosaurs of which there were many species seemed a good idea at first, but what about our whales and dolphins? No the idea is not to out compete what we already have too few of.

Somehow I don´t think they would outcompete cetaceans. Unless you chose a large one such as Thalattoarchon or Cymbospondylus, most ichthyosaurs wouldn´t be a threat to cetaceans, and I can totally see them feeding off bait-balls along with dolphins and sharks in South Africa, or something like that.

Only advantage ichthyosaurs would have over cetaceans (that I can think of) is that they are quite deaf and rely on eyesight mostly, so they wouldn´t be as vulnerable as cetaceans to all the noises and radars and what not that is disorienting and stranding whales and dolphins all over the world apparently.

Rubecula wrote: »

Predator X? Mososaur Maximus? Liopleuridon? These evolved into monsters but in the sea I was not at first overly worried by size, yet they evolved in really dangerous seas, they would decimate modern wildlife. No no no.

Although I agree that pliosaurs could potentially be a threat to large, scarce marine animals like whales and large sharks, Im thinking they would probably be decimated by humans first. Sharks keep causing hysteria whenever they show up (or worst, bite someone), so Im sure people wouldn´t be happy to see a 18 meter long sea lizard patroling the coast.

Rubecula wrote: »

The trouble is that sea creatures are not generally herbivores, so it had to be as harmless to most creatures as possible. Tough one. I almost settled on a long necked pliosaur, it seemed a decent compromise, but then I remembered Archelon. I wish I could chose more than one creature now, But I set myself the task of ONE from each. So it is Archelon I chose to represent sea creatures.

Archelon would be nice :> How long would it last, tho? I'm guessing it laid eggs like all other turtles, and being so huge, it probably did quite infrequently.
Also there's the question of what Archelon ate... I've always suspected that a big part of Archelon's diet were ammonites. I mean, it has huge, powerful jaws, and ammonites were quite numerous back then. If this was true, it may be that Archelon would be in serious trouble to find suitable food in out modern, ammonite-free oceans.

I actually think ichthyosaurs (smallish, fish-eating ones) or long-necked plesiosaurs would probably be a good choice. Ichthyosaurs probably more so than plesiosaurs, as plesiosaurs would be slower and easier to capture.

If I had to choose an ichthyosaur, I would probably go for Eurhinosaurus just because its so friggin cool.

Rubecula wrote: »

This part turned out to be the most tricky. Yes just like T.Rex, I would love to have Quetzalcoatlus, but too big too dangerous and it could easily eat us too. :eek: Maybe a film of it flying will do? But we travel all over the world in aircraft that would look like flying buffets to a biggy like Quetzalcoatlus. So that was out. Smaller creatures would hardly survive in a world dominated by birds, even Bats would be able to give them a hard time in competition I suspect, so the likes of Rhamphorhynchus was therefore put on a back burner. My final choice is not too big (although big) and not to small. Pteranodon longiceps, a more common creature than some others.

Thing about pterosaurs is that they would be very difficult to protect, considering how they could fly enormous distances in very little time. I mean, you could put your Pteranodon in a nice island preserve or something, and couple days later they would be flying over Japan, as these guys supossedly spent most of their time in the open sea, like albatrosses... although I guess you could always fit them with a tracking device and study their movements :B That would be interesting.

If I had to choose a pterosaur it would probably be Tapejara imperator (or Tupandactylus if you're into that).
Why? Because 1) Its big, but not Quetzalcoatlus-big, 2) Its weird as hell, 3) it has short wings and probably didn´t fly that much, so it would be easier to keep within protected boundaries, and 4) it was apparently a fruit-eater, and wouldn´t go around eating babies and causing heart attacks like Quetzalcoatlus would.

Speaking of Quetzalcoatlus and kin, did you hear about those new Hatzegopteryx remains found in Romania? They suggest that Hatz had different proportions to other azhdarchids; short neck, more robust body, still big enough to swallow a man whole, but probably a lot stronger (it a bit shorter) than we thought. :>

So yeah, my suggestions would be ankylosaur, ichthyosaur and Tapejara.

I would love to see a T-Rex, tho (can´t resist!)

Rubecula

Great choices and good logic Adam.