Terror Bird Vs. Saber-tooth, Aborigine Vs. Marsupial Lion

[BobC]

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this is a very interesting thread on a number of levels. but in the end, cooperative effort, and maybe a dose of technology, will pretty much determine the outcome of the fight. and don't get too hurt over any past minor setbacks of your favorite critters, auspex. because at the end of the day, they may be creations of man, but the deadliest weapon systems on the planet pretty much all have wings, fins, or vanes and fly through the air, and some of the best are named after birds.

[Auspex]

Wat's the strangest thing you ever saw a hawk prey on?

I saw a Red Tail take an injured Kestrel.

I've also seen a Barred Owl take a Screech Owl.

Coolest one ever was a Mississippi Kite delivering Chimney Swifts to the nest.

[kauffy]

I have twice found Great Horned Owl pellets with house cat craniums in them

Yep...was running with my dog along this little path through some bush quite early in the morning and i saw a Powerful Owl (Ninox strenua)<orignial name right?> eyeing my little dog, i have no doubt it would have gone for it if i wasnt there...beautiful though...owls are my one of my favorite!

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whose lunch?

[MarkGelbart]

I never was much for the "old and the weak" theory, are there any studies to support it? A predator takes what is available, there are more young available, so they get taken more often. If they have a choice, then they may single out an easier prey item. As a hunter, I would never take a sick animal for food, I don't think it would taste good, not to mention the sick aspect of it. Raptors make mistakes all the time in taking prey, I read an article a few years back, I think in Natural History, where something like fifty percent of the raptor attacks on weasels lead to the death of the raptor, the weasel is so quick, it can spin in the talons, climb the bird, and break its spine with a single bite.

Brent Ashcraft

I'm certain there are lots of studies that show predators prefer to take the young, weak, and sick. If I have time I'll do a google search.

I don't thing hungry predators care that much about taste.

Arctic wolves eat puke buried in dirt.

Two days ago I found cat scat in my yard that had a used in it.

[Frank Menser]

On the subject of bird hunting skills...

I was driving along Prospect road (in Broward Co Fla) when a shape darted through the traffic and landed on something in the grassy curb of the road. It was a Sparrow Hawk and it had nailed a mouse that had been foolish enough to wander out of cover. What was cool was the bird did not care that cars were pasing with a couple feet of it as it finished off its prey.

[BobC]

Yeah owls are beautiful creatures--but kinda scary too. I doubt there's a much more horrifying way to go than being captured and eaten by a bird! Except maybe getting eaten by a snake!

I used to live along a creek in Lewisville, Texas and these huge owls would hunt cottontail rabbits along it at night. It is amazing how silent owls are when they fly. I had one fly so close to me that I could feel the breeze as he soared by.

Another time I was at the Lewisville spillway around dusk and my puppy Noodles found a bone in the field and was gnawing on it. An owl came down and flew so close to Noodles that I can only surmise that the owl thought Noodles was a coyote who'd caught a rabbit--and wanted to steal her dinner!

[ashcraft]

I'm certain there are lots of studies that show predators prefer to take the young, weak, and sick. If I have time I'll do a google search.

I don't thing hungry predators care that much about taste.

Arctic wolves eat puke buried in dirt.

Two days ago I found cat scat in my yard that had a used in it.

Taking of young, weak, sick, wasn't my point, doing it to protect against injury was, a predator takes what is available. Eating something that is decayed is much different then eating something that is sick. It has been my experience as a woodsman, trapper, hunter, and just a general observer, that animals avoid other animals that are ill.

They will also reject food routinely based on flavor/smell. A pile of skinned carcasses will attract coyotes, which will eat carcasses in this order: deer, muskrats, beaver, raccoon, opossums. They will (in my experience) never eat otters, or other skinned coyotes. I have also read of bird dogs that will not pick up certain birds, particularly woodcock, I assume because of smell/taste.

Of weird things in scat-I found an entire woodpecker leg in bobcat poo, sticking out sideways. I doubt that that latrine was particularly pleasant.

Brent Ashcraft

[BobC]

Interesting. One thing I've noticed about vultures is that they seem to love eating dead snakes above all else. Then deer. Possums seems last on the list

[Auspex]

Among the avian predators, Golden and Bald Eagles readily feed on carion, as do Red Tailed and Red Shouldered Hawks. At the banding station, the only raptor that will sometimes respond to a dead lure is the Northern Harrier, and then only if it is small enough to fly off with.

The founder of the Cape May project once personally tested the Am. Indian technique of capturing a Golden Eagle.

I think it was in Arizona. He dug a shallow trough to lay in and pulled a deer carcass over himself, leaving his hands free but hidden. On the third day, he was able to grab a young Golden Eagle by the legs when it came to feed.

Fossil hunters do some crazy stuff, but not to just let their prize go free!

[BobC]

Uhhhhhhh sounds like a good way to get a finger snipped off. Why did Indians capture eagles? For food or to hunt with?

[Auspex]

...Why did Indians capture eagles? For food or to hunt with?

For a couple tail feathers; the bird was apologized to and released. The feathers were (are) icons of great respect.

[BobC]

That's crazy. They should have just driven them to the edge of extinction and skipped the apologies--like we do.

[BobC]

uhhhhh I hope everybody knows I was just being flippant. I am the world's biggest animal lover.

I brought this thread to a screeching halt!

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uhhhhh I hope everybody knows I was just being flippant. I am the world's biggest animal lover.

I brought this thread to a screeching halt!

don't overthink this place. sometimes people just don't have a comment. you're doing pretty well so far.

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For a couple tail feathers; the bird was apologized to and released. The feathers were (are) icons of great respect.

"anthropomorphism is illogical, captain"

"spock, are you out of your vulcan mind?"

[Traviscounty]

I drove to Lake Jackson to visit my buddy. After arriving in the early evening, his cat got up on my truck hood to nap. (you know how they love that warm hood) At dusk we were sitting in the garage talking, when we saw an owl swoop down......no more kitty. The cat didn't even make a sound, and the owl carried it off effortlessly.

[siteseer]

Mark there is no question in my mind that a Saber-tooth would kill any terrestrial bird, no matter how big. Lions hunt Ostriches. Cats stalk and kill--and their stealth IMO would allow them to hunt these "terror birds."

I do video games for a living and I find most of these shows really embarrassing because the animators are always so clueless about animal behavior and it shows. If I see one more stealth hunter roaring before they pounce, I am going to hurl myself from the nearest skyscraper.

You don't announce your presence when you are sneaking up on something. God that is so retarded

Yeah, while the "terror bird" might have been big at 300lbs, it was also sharing territory with the largest species of Smilodon, S. populator, which was in the same weight class. It's more likely that the two avoided each other or perhaps even it was the bird that was bested in a classic cat ambush (breaking from cover and taking it down before going for the throat).

Also, it was totally ridiculous showing the bird chasing the horse and pecking at it on the run. First, the show compared the terror bird to an ostrich, a more gracile form, and thought the former could match the latter in speed. Using the gymnast with the spring-stilts to approximate a terror bird's possible speed is unrealistic. I didn't understand why they didn't do that limb bone proportion comparison I've seen other shows do when they try to calculate T. rex running speeds.

Second, I doubted a terror bird could catch up to an adult horse and then peck at it from the side at 40 miles an hour on uneven terrain without losing its balance.

Later, after pointing out how rare the Titanis fossils are in North America (less than 40 specimens), the narrator described the terror birds as thriving. They went extinct in South America after the invasion of North American mammals and then died out in North America long before Smilodon, dire wolves, and the American lion did. You can give them credit for spreading north and making it to Florida but they died out in North America at the end of the Pliocene (the Blancan-age Santa Fe River sites being among their most recent occurrences), not even making it to the first glacial advance.

They also didn't explain how Titanis reached North America two million years before the Isthmus of Panama formed - before the way was paved by a land bridge. Even if a few intervening islands, now eroded away, made it easier to get to North America, that big bird must have had a good swimming stroke (can ostriches swim?).

[trilo-biker]

In most cases I would bet on the saber-tooth wining but rember that modern ostriches can and will kill a lion with one kick if they cant get away so it depends on if the bird didnt run away because if it could it pry would