Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for December 03, 1993

‘Bogus’? What is he, a stereotypical teen from the 80’s?

More of an editorial.

seen it

Calvin had still had 15 minutes the previous night. He could have written something like, “Was Tyrannosaurus rex a predator or a scavenger? It seems likely that T. rex was mostly predatory, because its skeletal features suggest that it was too well-designed for feeding only on carrion (meat scavenged from already deceased animals). Like the tails of other tetanuran theropod dinosaurs, the tail of T. rex was stiffened for most of its length, which increased this animal’s balance as it ran. Its forward-facing eyes would have enabled it to see what was necessary for it to do in order to overcome its prey. T. rex’s two-fingered arms were too small to have been used in hunting, but its teeth and toe claws would have sufficed. T. rex was from the late Cretaceous, and its prey included herbivorous dinosaurs such as Edmontosaurus, Triceratops, Pachycephalosaurus, and Ankylosaurus. With sufficient notice, T. rex may have been able to dodge Triceratops’s horns and Ankylosaurus’s tail club. Present-day predators, such as tigers, tend to focus on the older, weaker individuals of their herbivorous prey, such as chital and other deer. Doing so strengthens the numbers of the herbivores, and prevents them from becoming too numerous for the habitats to support. This is what predatory dinosaurs may have done, as well. Herbivores are needed for maintaining the spread and diversity of the vegetation, but carnivores are needed for controlling their numbers. If T. rex had been a scavenger, then it wouldn’t have been able to control the herbivorous dinosaurs’ numbers. Predators hunt other animals only to survive; they should not be regarded as ‘cruel’ because of their diet. Like other species, predators are essential to the balance of nature. The end”.