Re: Fire, king of beasts (was Re: Terra firma hominids)

Will in New Haven:
Mario Petrinovich:
Will in New Haven:
Mario Petrinovich:
pete:
Mario Petrinovich:
The only thing tha stops trees to grow, is fire.

Grazing animals kill dicotyledons,
which is what trees are. -- pete

First you got to have grazing animals. Some say that grazing
animals
started at the edges of swamps. Well, this is ok with me. And you
simply
don't have New World grazing animals. Bison came from The Old World.
How
come non-grass eating pronghorn survived in preire? Where are those
grazing
animals? Pronghorn was faster, so it could escape Jeep Cheeroke? --
Mario

Pronghorns got so fast so that they could escape ancestral North
American Cheetah. The Cheetah is not a forest animal and certainly not
a mountain animal. It is also much less adaptable than its closest
relative, the Couger. But it is very fast and that is the only reason
the Pronghorn is so fast. When running from any living North American
predator, the adult pronghorn can stop at a convenience store, wait in
line while people buy lottery tickets, make its purchase and still have
a good lead on its pursuer. While the presence of the Cheetah does not
prove the existance of large treeless areas it makes such areas very
likely as modern Cheetahs avoid large stands of trees.

I have watched Pronghorns through scopes and they sure SEEMED to be
grazing. And what they were eating was grass. But maybe they were some
sort of perverted Pronghorns. Will in New Haven

Yes, pronghorns do eat grass. But only when there aren't herbs
that they usually eat.
Regarding cheetahs, american ones were big.

Some of the NA ones were big.

You have camels in America, too, you know. They are called
llamas.
Big cheetah is as fast as lion, or possibly tiger, I presume.
Tiger
can live in jungle, but in order for big cat to live in savanna, it needs
to live in prides. Lions are the only cats that live in prides.

Tigers do OK in open coujntry if not in competition with Lions. There
are open-country Tigers in northern Asia. There are leopards on the
edges of the savannah and cheetahs in the savannah in Africa. Leopards
couldn't live in the middle of the savannah because they need trees for
protection from Lions and Hyenas but they can hunt succesfully by
themselves in the savannah.

So, the presence of cheetah doesn't say much. Just like the
presence
of horses. If cheetah was a savanna animal, it would be in the size of a
savanna cat. And it would hunt savanna grazers. And I don't see grazers,
other than bison. -- Mario

I don't know what a forested-country Cheetah would be like but it might
be a great deal like its closest relative, the Couger. Cheetahs are
well-adapted for open country. Will in New Haven

I don't know what exactly you want to say.
DNA says that NA Giant Cheetahs are related to puma, and not to
cheetahs of The Old World.
Regarding their characteristics, we can talk about. But, to claim
that they are savanna animals is just too much.
I repeat, there are no savanna ecology in NA. We do have pronghorn,
who COULD evolve into savanna gazelle, but DIDN'T. It CAN eat grass, but it
doesn't eat it if it has something else. We don't have dogs. They say that
there was some giant hyena (IIRC). Where here somebody can see a savanna
environment? I don't see it.
I REPEAT, just like some savanna ecologists, savanna is maintained
by humans fire. And we do have savanna ecology in The Old World for some
time. I repeat, all this is created by HUMANS. By human fire. Cattle.
Domestic dogs. All this. Everything. This whole ecology exists because,
around, and for the use by HUMANS. Because of fire used by humans. -- Mario


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Relevant Pages

  • Re: Fire, king of beasts (was Re: Terra firma hominids)
    ... First you got to have grazing animals. ... The Cheetah is not a forest animal and certainly not ... can live in jungle, but in order for big cat to live in savanna, it needs to ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: Fire, king of beasts (was Re: Terra firma hominids)
    ... First you got to have grazing animals. ... Pronghorn was faster, so it could escape Jeep Cheeroke? ... The Cheetah is not a forest animal and certainly not ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
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