Welcome to the home of Prehistoric Breakdown. Come and join me fellow travelers as we delve into the prehistoric world and the incredible creatures that lived in it.
I think falcarius, being a transitional omnivore, proabably used a combination of fleeing and self defense when faced with predators. It probably tried to run away first, a natural herbivorous tendency, but if backed up or cornered, it could have used its claws to fend off threats as a carnivorous instinct. Some more transitional or basal dinosaurs I would love to see include Scutellosaurus, Eodromeus, Darmonosaurus, Tawa Hallae, Jakapil, Nqwebasaurus, Harpymimus, Buriooestes, Eoraptor or Saturnalia, Haplocheirus, Fukuivenator, and pretty much any proto-bird, a territory you have yet to cover!
It really depends. Therizinosaurs were clearly doing something different considering their weight-bearing hallux. It'd be interesting to see studies looking at why that'd be useful. I'd be very interested to see if there's been any research into the factors that determine whether fight-vs-flight is preferred by a species as that may extend to dinosaurs.
Native Americans are noted as respecting the land & being conservationists too...didn't stop them from triggering or contributing to the mass extinctions. As alien as Australia was, I'm sure it was even worse there. Both used FIRE to reshape the land to their liking & benefit, in the case of Australia that "standard human operating procedure" was particularly bad, selecting for fire resistant plants & allowing soil changes, etc. It isn't that special evidence is needed to finger humans for extinctions, it would require extensive evidence to exonerate humans & that is how it ought be looked at (but never will be, because: feelings).
They are extremely interesting birds! so unique, It would be awesome had some made it. I'm far more realistic & pessimistic on de-extinction now than I once was. We cannot even keep the animals of now around, there is no chance for demons ducks alongside humans. I will note that ducks & geese are extremely commonplace in my small city, and the aggressiveness seems reducible pretty quickly, but for animals our own size ot larger...no chance.
Honestly, I don't mind Saurophaganax being either a basal Carcharodontosaurid or a larger Genus of Allosaurid within Allosauridae. I always figured it was either of those two options. I mean looking at the reconstructed skull in the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, it looks either like a Carcharodontosaurid or a transitionary form between Allosaurus Fragilis and what could've been THE first Carcharodontosaurid from North America during the Late Jurassic but became extinct before that could "come to fruition". After all the Genus Allosaurus lived in North America for 10 million years (neverminding the species A. Europaeus that probably lived through the rest of the Jurassic Period in Portugal), so why shouldn't the namesake of the family Allosauridae have another species that probably evolved from it? Granted yes we'd need more specimens and use phylogenetic bracketing to fill in the gaps, but even so the bones we have of it date to only 151 or 150 million years ago so something definitely happened as A. Jimmadseni (the oldest species of the Genus) evolved into A. Fragilis but perhaps also evolved into a new Genus entirely. It's not impossible for that to be the case, but as I've already said we'd need more proof regardless of new papers because that always change too.
The "living in harmony with nature" is bs ans really ignorant and idealising claim. No, human are the main culprits. We know it, overhunting and burning the lands for centuries did kill the megafauna. All these creature have seen worse climate period and were adapted. While EVERYTIME human arrived to one place, the megafauna quickly disapeared after. Coïncidence do happen, but not systematically.
Have to say people arriving in Australia in a time of drying was enough to drive megafauna to extinction, they are a new big predator on the landscape but use fire as well in a ever increasing way in pockets that animals went back into when times are very bad. They may not wanted it to happen but in hard times with a big band of people you need protein to survive. Cool vids keep them up.
