Re: Vegan A'piths?

From: Bob Keeter (rkeeter_at_earthlink.net)
Date: 09/09/04 

Date: Thu, 09 Sep 2004 01:49:24 GMT

"Pauline M Ross" <pmross@ross-software.co.uk> wrote in message
news:bmvtj0pm94i0emnb0gpaah9okk1dg4cmum@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 08 Sep 2004 01:18:28 GMT, "Bob Keeter" <rkeeter@earthlink.net>
> wrote:
>
>>Ah, yes, Pauline, you are back!
>
> Yep, moved at last, if not totally unpacked yet.
>>
>>Couple of issues to consider. While it might be difficult to really pin
>>that C4 concentration on meat eating in isolation, there might just be
>>more
>>"reasons" to consider the carnivorous route than the vegan route.
>
> Perhaps. I would put it the other way - it would be difficult to pin
> the C4 concentration on *non*-meat-eating alone; in other words, it's
> hard to account for the C4 without including *some* meat in the mix,
> even if it isn't *just* meat.

And the definition of omnivore is. . . . . . . 8-)

> I keep coming back to the variation - some Apiths ate no C4 foods at
> all, some ate as much as 60%. That's an awful lot of termites (or
> sedges). It's easier to explain if at least some of the C4 component
> is a high-energy food like meat, which would reduce the need for C3
> foods.

Much easier! While termites dont require a lot of specialized teeth (matter
of fact some of the more voracious termite and ant eating mammals dont have
much to speak of in terms of teeth at all!), it takes some really choppers,
actually grinders, to even begin to process uncooked bullrushes. AND I would
suggest a diet of bullrushes would also require, or at least encourage from
a darwinian sence, some significant incisors just to rip through the sheaths
to get to the "edible" pith.

> [Snip]
>>Now if you DO look at the apith teeth, do you see the teeth of a grazer?
>>Do you see the teeth of a creature that could, with its dental machinery,
>>actually deal with the tough shoots and rhizomes of sedges?
>
> They don't show the characteristic wear patterns of grass-eaters, nor
> (apparently) are they the right shape for regular meat-eaters. I don't
> know what sort of teeth would be needed to eat sedge-roots, but most
> roots are not particularly hard or abrasive in themselves.

Lets dwell a bit on the phrase "right shape for regular meat-eaters" for a
moment. When you see a lion's fangs, are those for eating or for killing?
If the teeth are not the primary killing weapon, how WOULD a meat eater's
teeth look? Maybe something like the slicing teeth behind the fangs in
lions? That would be real handy if it was ONLY teeth that could be used for
sectioning up the prey into edible chunks. On the other hand, look at how
chimps manage to eat meat (monkeys, small antellopes, etc) even with their
very "fructivorish" dental equipment.

Think about it this way. Your average fructivore probably has the easiest
job chewing its food (and digesting its food) of any creature. Fruits have
evolved as nice little "food packet" rewards for some mobile creature that
volunteers to carry the seeds away from the parent plant (at least that is
one theory). The fruits are rich in basic sugars that just flow into the
bloodstream, the husks are quite manageable, and the seeds dont care!

At the other extreme, a bullrush eating primate would be faced with a tough
and very "chewy" food source that yields a lot of complex starches and
fiber. Hard to chew up and hard to digest if you manage to get it down.
even if you are gnawing on the toughest, most gristly chunk of antellope, it
would be easier going than trying to gnaw through the husk of a bullrush,
and then the rewards for all of the hard work with the sedges would be a
mouthfull of foul tasting pith just crammed with totally indigestable
materials!

I would offer that meat eating is much closer to fruit eating than it is to
bullrush eating. Wouldnt you?

> [Snip]
>>Its those "peripheral" issues that also have to "fit in" to the other
>>hypotheses. For example, termites COULD be the source, but ONLY if those
>>termites feasted mainly on grasses.
>
> Yes, but remember the wide variation in C4 values - some populations
> may have eaten a lot of (grass-eating) termites, others very little,
> still others none at all, and most likely none of them got there C4
> just from termites (or any other single food, for that matter).

Could it possibly be that the apiths just simply ate what was present? if
there was a year-long supply of fresh fruit why bother trying to run down
antellopes or chase monkeys around the tree tops? A full belly with nothing
to do but walk up and pick fruit vs. a hard chase. . . . . Hmmmm. . . . .
Of course it COULD be that some of those apiths just did not live in areas
with much fruit (or at least not a lot of year round fruit!).

>>The teeth of a carnivorous ape dont have to match the teeth of a lion or
>>tiger, they just have to be unsuitable for any other purpose! And as for
>>human-like teeth being unsuitable for eating meat, Id suggest a quick
>>consideration of the possibility that they might not be suitable for
>>anything else in an apith's environment! Fruit and veggies? Yep, and
>>probably a major component of an apith diet no matter what else they might
>>have eaten, but no C4. Grasses and sedges, nope, but plenty of C4 but
>>neither the teeth nor digestive tract required. Animals with a C4-rich
>>diet
>>(and that includes animals from proboscids to mice and insects), at least
>>on
>>the low end, most certainly!
>
> I don't disagree with you here - it's highly likely that serious meat
> (small to medium-sized) was on the menu for at least some populations,
> but the shape of the teeth indicate (the Teaford/Ungar reference) that
> it wasn't a staple food - an occasional high-energy bonanza, perhaps.
>
> --
> Pauline Ross

For chimps, meat is an occasional high energy bonanza, and it would seem to
me that their teeth are a lot less "modified" from the ancestoral
fructivore/insectivore primate than ours! 8-) Wouldnt you agree?

Regards
bk

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