Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren Vogebaum here with a classic episode from
Speaker 1: the archives. This is a fun one for me. I
Speaker 1: think I mispronounced the names of a few dinosaurs, but
Speaker 1: I was excited because I was talking about dinosaurs, and
Speaker 1: specifically about velociraptors. In this episode, we answered the surprisingly
Speaker 1: complex question of whether they really hunted in packs the
Speaker 1: way that we see in the movies. Hey there, brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogebaum here. Whoever the human stars of the latest
Speaker 1: Jurassic Park movie are the velociraptors are the fan favorite performers.
Speaker 1: Packs of raptors can gang up on anyone or anything,
Speaker 1: from kids in kitchens to a hybridized dino monster. Their
Speaker 1: tax are organized, strategic, and in most of the movies
Speaker 1: they rely on a chain of command within the group.
Speaker 1: But is such team oriented behavior supported by the fossil record.
Speaker 1: Before we can answer that question, we should clear something up.
Speaker 1: The dinosaur that's called velociraptor in the Jurassic Park movies
Speaker 1: and novels was based on a completely different animal known
Speaker 1: as Dano NICUs, and when it comes to size, there's
Speaker 1: a huge gap between the two Velociraptor wasn't much bigger
Speaker 1: than a turkey, but the adult dano Niicus measured eleven
Speaker 1: feet or about three point three meters long, and may
Speaker 1: have weighed more than two hundred pounds. That's both are
Speaker 1: classified as Dromaeosaurids, a family of bird like carnivorous dinosaurs.
Speaker 1: Members of this group had a specialized toe on each foot,
Speaker 1: which famously was held in an upright position while they walked.
Speaker 1: In theory. That habit kept the large hook shaped claws
Speaker 1: on those digits nice and sharp. Historically, it was thought
Speaker 1: that these claws were slashing tools used to disembowel prey,
Speaker 1: but recent studies have found that the claus would have
Speaker 1: been better equipped for stabbing or puncturing Dromosaurus. Therefore, it
Speaker 1: might have used their remarkable toes to help them cling
Speaker 1: on to large thrashing victims. Think of this as sort
Speaker 1: of a prehistoric rodeo. Getting back to dano Niicus, This
Speaker 1: particular dinosaur was originally discovered in nineteen thirty one in Montana,
Speaker 1: but it wouldn't be named until nineteen sixty nine. That's
Speaker 1: when Yale paleontologist John Ostrom was overseeing a dig at
Speaker 1: a Montana quarry, and the bones of four dino nikus
Speaker 1: were found strewn around the partial skeleton of a much
Speaker 1: larger herbivore called Tanantosaurus. Late in his career, Ostrom compared
Speaker 1: this paleocrime scene to a wolf pack dispatching its prey.
Speaker 1: The four dead dino Nikus, dinos he theorized had been
Speaker 1: killed while attacking the big plant eater in a coordinated
Speaker 1: group effort. Later, other members of their pack presumably killed
Speaker 1: that tenacious dinosaur. Ostrom's work influenced author Michael Crichton, who
Speaker 1: wrote pack hunting Dromaeosaurus into the first Jurassic Park book.
Speaker 1: The concept has since taken hold of the public's imagination. Moreover,
Speaker 1: it's had a significant impact on dinosaurs science. Therapods, the
Speaker 1: group containing birds and all known extinct carnivorous dinos, are
Speaker 1: often found fossilized in close proximity to other members of
Speaker 1: their own species. Because of this, it's argued that plenty
Speaker 1: of non dremaosaur predators like Tyrannosaurus and allosaurs might have
Speaker 1: hunted in packs too, but then again, perhaps they didn't.
Speaker 1: In a two thousand seven paper, paleontologists Bryan Roach and
Speaker 1: Daniel Brinkman dissected the issue at length, and in their opinion,
Speaker 1: neither Dana Nikeus, nor velociraptor, nor any other non avian
Speaker 1: predatory dinosaur would have formed packs. Via email, Brinkman explained,
Speaker 1: mammal like cooperative pack hunting is an extremely rare and
Speaker 1: complex behavior, so let's talk terminology. Brinkman and Roaches paper
Speaker 1: defines true cooperative pack hunting as a group effort carried
Speaker 1: out by animals that habitually worked together with others of
Speaker 1: their species to capture and subdue prey too large for
Speaker 1: an individual predator to kill alone. Furthermore, these team players
Speaker 1: also defend their territory collectively and may share youngster rearing duties.
Speaker 1: No living bird or reptile fits the criteria. It's true
Speaker 1: that nile crocodiles sometimes gang up on big mammals like wildebees,
Speaker 1: but they later disperse, and although Harris hawks have been
Speaker 1: known to form hunting parties of up to nine birds,
Speaker 1: they target small game while doing so. That said, there
Speaker 1: is one living animal that, according to Roached Brinkman, might
Speaker 1: offer us some insight into how Dramosaurus and other non
Speaker 1: avian therapods behaved. Around big prey items. The Komodo dragon.
Speaker 1: Komodo dragons are solo hunters and effective ones at that
Speaker 1: an adult can bring down victims ten times its own
Speaker 1: body weight. These reptiles are also eager scavengers, and when
Speaker 1: one of them kills a large prey item, others are
Speaker 1: likely to come running. What follows is a gruesome feeding
Speaker 1: frenzy with a dozen or more commodo dragons mobbing the carcass.
Speaker 1: Such meetings get violent fast. While squabbling over a corpse,
Speaker 1: komotos may attack one another. Sometimes they even kill and
Speaker 1: eat their smaller competitors at the site. So when paleontologists
Speaker 1: find a large collection of therapod bones and or teeth
Speaker 1: in the same fossil deposit, what should they make of it?
Speaker 1: Should they interpret the remains like a wolf style family unit,
Speaker 1: or should they be viewed as the site of a
Speaker 1: disorganized mob where side squabbles and cannibalism would have been rampant.
Speaker 1: For their part, Brinkman and Roach find the latter scenario
Speaker 1: more probable. Brinkman said Dina, nikes and other non avian
Speaker 1: therapods were most likely solitary hunters who engaged in antagonistic
Speaker 1: Komodo dragon like feeding aggregations, and they interacted with each
Speaker 1: other in ways that were much more contentious, combative, and
Speaker 1: cannibalistic than has been widely believed. Okay, but what about
Speaker 1: dinosaur footprints? Can they shed any light onto the pack
Speaker 1: hunting debate. In two thousand and seven, a hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty million year old drmaosaur trackway was discovered in China.
Speaker 1: Six different sets of parallel tracks were found, each made
Speaker 1: by an animal standing about four feet or one point
Speaker 1: two meters tall at the hip, and judging by the
Speaker 1: nature of the sediment, it looks like these prints were
Speaker 1: all laid down within a very short span of time.
Speaker 1: Anthony J. Martin, a leading paleo ichnologist a trace fossil scientist,
Speaker 1: thinks the animals who made them were traveling in some
Speaker 1: kind of group. He said via email. The trackways showed
Speaker 1: these drmaosaurs were moving at about the same pace, in
Speaker 1: the same direction parallel, and spaced more or less the
Speaker 1: same distance apart. So I'm fairly certain that this is
Speaker 1: evidence of group behavior. Still, this doesn't necessarily mean the
Speaker 1: dromosaurs hunted in packs. Maybe they were rushing toward a
Speaker 1: dead body like those independently minded Komodo dragons. In order
Speaker 1: to confidently cite any footprint assemblage as the product of
Speaker 1: pack hunting or a similar activity, would need, said Martin,
Speaker 1: more evidence, such as tracks of a prey animal that
Speaker 1: was clearly preceding them and not by much time. Best
Speaker 1: of all would be the dromosaur tracks ending at a
Speaker 1: kill site and acknowledgist can dream right. Today's episode was
Speaker 1: written by Mark Mancini, whose name I also original name
Speaker 1: is pronounced, and produced by Tristan McNeil and Tyler Klang.
Speaker 1: For more on this and lots of other topics because
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is produce
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