Comment on Anon has a proposal for you
NuanceDemon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day agoA predator like that probably won’t starve in a month. Its a bit hard to say, you could compare with a crocodile (larger ones can fast for 2 - 3 years) but they are cold blooded which is a huge metabolic advantage here.
Chances are they probably only ate every 1 to 2 weeks by default. A month is probably not a stretch.
I’m not sure I agree on the longevity. Trex is no crocodile that can sit there with essentially zero energy expenditure for hours/days/weeks; Trex stands upright and has to walk which requires a lot of muscle output.
Also what about water? Are you saying it wouldn’t die of dehydration either?
Why would it be wandering around if it was stuck in a relatively small space? It can sit or lie down, being bipedal doesn’t mean it needs to be constantly standing or walking.
I looked into this afterward and there’s actually a study by Barrick and Showers (1999) estimating that a large tyrannosaur could consume 2 - 3 weeks’ worth of food in a single meal, and that’s before accounting for its existing fat reserves. Remember, a starving animal will burn through its fat reserves and eventually its muscle tissue before it dies, so at that size it’s potentially got significant runway.
There’s also Kleiber’s law, which says larger animals have proportionally lower energy requirements relative to their body mass. Obviously a rex would need an enormous amount of food in absolute terms, but that doesn’t mean it would actually need to eat particularly frequently. Throw that all together and i highly doubt a month would be enough to starve one to death.
Dehydration is a much better argument though, I’ll give you that. I’ve no idea how long a rex could survive without water, and I doubt anyone can reliably estimate it. I’d imagine that would kill it long before starvation did.
Although interestingly, the original scenario only says you’re provided with food, it doesn’t actually mention water for either of you.
But if it rained, water would pool in its footprints and you’d definitely be screwed.
Actually it is believed that T Rex was warm blooded: scientificamerican.com/…/t-rex-was-as-warm-bloode…
I think you misread me, that is the common theory yeah
Ahh reading over again you’re right my bad!
Hupf@feddit.org 1 day ago
What did they even do all day then?
AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Probably smoked weed and played Fortnite, they were likely a bunch of wankers.
Hupf@feddit.org 1 day ago
With those arms? uh oh
androogee@midwest.social 1 day ago
Really long wein
SippyCup@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Predators tend to spend most of their time just laying around.
We suspect dinosaurs were metabolically similar to Komodo dragons, which are also probably an example of island dwarfism. So they’re probably the closest analog we have. And they either eat scraps or lay in ambush. Which, you know, involves laying around for long stretches of time.
Hupf@feddit.org 1 day ago
Great line to remember for my boss