So these giant lizards that require a great deal of calories to sustain themselves....

Are totally focused on what is not even a big appetizer? Expending all that energy for is basically a cracker?

Humans are so egocentric. Nature is out to get me! Especially if I am blonde and female.

Jurassic Park had the same logic, which annoyed me too.

Come on. I doubt that's what's really pissing off the dog.

True. It is pissing ME off.

Unless you were, kindly, calling me a bitch?

(I know you aren't, I just couldn't resist making a joke I would never ever EVER make about someone else.)

It’s equivalent to giving a monitor lizard a mouse, or a giant snake a rabbit. Have you ever seen large reptiles being fed?

A grown person could feed a large raptor for days, longer if it’s cold. The idea that dinosaurs only ate other large dinosaurs comes from Hollywood, not paleontologists or animal behaviorists. Smaller prey is both less dangerous and much easier to digest. Carrion is even better.

My monitor, nearly 4 ft long, preferred multiple mice to a rat, and hunted small anole lizards too….now that’s like hunting a cracker crumb, and it loved to do it.

P.S. Jurassic Park dinosaurs preferred to eat old male lawyers over blond females.

Sense of humor test complete.

Welcome!

I never said that large dinosaurs would only go after other large dinosaurs.

Would your monitor fight three other large beings for a single mouse?

You didn’t explicitly say it, but you are incredulous that they would go after something small. Same argument, different angle imo….and a common misconception.

In the wild, or in captivity with others, yes. They would absolutely compete for a mouse. In my monitor’s later years I got a second monitor, I had to feed them separately because they would both go for the same mouse and end up accidentally biting each other’s heads in the process.

Fight?….that depends on your definition. Not like movie dinosaurs, but watch any clip of Komodo dragons feeding, or gators going after a single chicken carcass. Reptile mass feeding is rough, but rarely deadly. It’s not uncommon for gators to lose limbs in a feeding frenzy, for instance.

My guess is that the value of a few calories would depend on whether the dinosaurs were warm- or cold-blooded. A cold-blooded lizard or snake can last a lot longer on a small meal than a warm-blooded human.

The debate on whether or not actual dinosaurs were cold-blooded is still open, as far as I know. My favourite point in the argument is that all dinosaurs alive today (i.e. birds) are warm-blooded but perhaps it was exactly that adaptation that let them survive through the mas extinction.

Looking at the predatory dinosaurs in the film, there's no hint of feathers (so they're unlikely to be actual t-rexes), which to me points towards the idea that they're cold-blooded and so a small morsel would sustain them a while.

As for three of them getting involved, to me they're also being opportunistic at the chance of getting Kong. He seemed comfortable enough handling one, but it was definitely not a given. He acted very wary of two of them, so a third joining should really swing things in the dinosaurs' favour. However, it looks like Kong was holding back, and really let things fly when the odds were against him.

Watch it again and look at what the big dinos are going for.

What is in his hand. The cracker.

Which really is pretty stupid, because if you want the cracker, bite the holder of the cracker. Don't try for such a small target!

I learned a lot from what you wrote. Thank you!

And.

Big dinos laser focused and expending a great deal of energy for so few calories? THAT is the Hollywood nonsense.

This is MY pet peeve. I welcome company, of course. It is fun to be self righteously peeved!

Of course, you're absolutely right on all counts, especially the last.

You're also giving me extra giggles because I've been making sure to read all these comments using the derogatory meaning of the word 'cracker'.

Every time I typed "cracker" I thought of the rude meaning. I thought I would be the only one!

Thanks for the company.