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Post by Runic on Jan 12, 2014 8:17:12 GMT 5
Unlike the utensil you used which is suited and made specifically for cutting, the conical and spaced out teeth of a crocodile ain't gonna be doing that. I did use a cleaver, but I fail to see how they are any less dangerous, on a young individual they're perfectly designed for a cutting or tearing motion. A crocodile tooth is not a cleaver. Try cutting a piece of elastic with say a conical nail and see how efficient that is.
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Post by scythian on Jan 12, 2014 17:27:39 GMT 5
I did use a cleaver, but I fail to see how they are any less dangerous, on a young individual they're perfectly designed for a cutting or tearing motion. A crocodile tooth is not a cleaver. Try cutting a piece of elastic with say a conical nail and see how efficient that is. A single one isn't, heck nor a whole row, but putting its skin in the same level of elasticity of an elastic band seems wrong. It's not exactly snail flash, but I doubt it's able to withstand even a small rip by the saltie, considering it's adaptations to dealing with tough hide and so forth.
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Post by theropod on Jan 12, 2014 17:46:41 GMT 5
Those adaptions arenÂ’t for tearing through it, but for the opposite (of course that doesnÂ’t mean under the right circumstances it cannot rip open its prey, but primarily its tooth shape is meant to puncture into it and not let go).
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Post by scythian on Jan 12, 2014 18:13:11 GMT 5
Those adaptions arenÂ’t for tearing through it, but for the opposite (of course that doesnÂ’t mean under the right circumstances it cannot rip open its prey, but primarily its tooth shape is meant to puncture into it and not let go). That is the same with most carnivores though, but crocodalians are the only ones with use them to them to tear. The fact that they do makes the acclaimed adaptions irrelevant to how effective they are at tearing flesh.
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Post by theropod on Jan 12, 2014 19:37:05 GMT 5
Every carnivore tears flesh in feeding. That doesnÂ’t change the fact that crocodilian teeth, unlike for example shark or many varanid dentitions, are usually used for gripping and are adapted for this purpose. That is the reason they utilise shaking or torsional feeding for carcass dismemberment.
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Post by Runic on Jan 12, 2014 21:24:00 GMT 5
Those adaptions arenÂ’t for tearing through it, but for the opposite (of course that doesnÂ’t mean under the right circumstances it cannot rip open its prey, but primarily its tooth shape is meant to puncture into it and not let go). That is the same with most carnivores though, but crocodalians are the only ones with use them to them to tear. The fact that they do makes the acclaimed adaptions irrelevant to how effective they are at tearing flesh. The flesh of the prey crocodile tears is no where near as tough and elastic as a squid. If a crocodile gripped and tried to roll on a squid the arm wouldn't be ripped off more likely it'd just wrap around the crocodile. Animals like wolves tear flesh when fighting because they have teeth designed for it (carnassials) and animals like sharks have serrated teeth. Crocodile however have blunt spaced out robust teeth which is probably the worst kinda of tooth needed to cut a squid.
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Post by scythian on Jan 13, 2014 3:18:40 GMT 5
That is the same with most carnivores though, but crocodalians are the only ones with use them to them to tear. The fact that they do makes the acclaimed adaptions irrelevant to how effective they are at tearing flesh. The flesh of the prey crocodile tears is no where near as tough and elastic as a squid. If a crocodile gripped and tried to roll on a squid the arm wouldn't be ripped off more likely it'd just wrap around the crocodile. Animals like wolves tear flesh when fighting because they have teeth designed for it (carnassials) and animals like sharks have serrated teeth. Crocodile however have blunt spaced out robust teeth which is probably the worst kinda of tooth needed to cut a squid. Depends, Squid flesh is often gritty and soft depending on the individual. The squids skin isn't nearly as stretchy it can engulf a saltie. It'd be an understatement to say that it isn't on the level of a wolf in terms of tearing, even if it's jaw isnt anywhere near as moveable. Young healthy Crocs will likely have less blunt, worn teeth, in which case are more than capable of ripping through squid flesh, let alone piercing it, as they have little large amounts of flesh to tear in the first place.
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blaze
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Post by blaze on Jan 16, 2014 7:11:01 GMT 5
How sure are you that the squid does reach 12-14m in length?
The biggest specimens known, the submature female found in 2003 that weighted around 300kg had a mantle length of 2.5m and a total length of 5.4m, the other female from 2007, the 495kg specimen had a mantle length of about 2.5m too, total length was 4.2m but the two long tentacles shrunk a lot so its original total length was probably similar to the other female.
The rostral length of their beaks were 38mm and 41mm respectively, the largest beaks found in sperm whale stomachs are 49mm, this means that. assuming isometry, the largest colossal squids we have evidence of have mantle lengths of ~3.2m and total lengths of ~7m. Of course, still the biggest squid known in terms of mass, giant squids are only significantly longer because its arms and tentacles are that much longer.
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Post by theropod on Jan 16, 2014 23:51:02 GMT 5
Are you sure those are the right total lenght figures? They seem much too small to include the two long tentacles. The TL figures you get to read for that specimen are around 10m. I did not do any proper research, but those 5.4m being head-mantle lenght, not TL, makes more sense.
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blaze
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Post by blaze on Jan 17, 2014 0:23:26 GMT 5
They are total lengths, in colossal squids the mantle is close to half of the total length, they are not build like giant squids which have eye-arms section slightly longer than the mantle and two tentacles over twice as long as the mantle to arms length. 10m was the original estimate based on what the fishermen were saying, if true, it was estimated that its mantle length would have been 4m, once freezed in an ice cube and being able to see it closer the scientist were estimating 6-8m instead, later after measuring it they got a mantle length of 2.5m but the tentacles had shrunk. Ventral view photograph Illustration by Anton Van Helden. Images taken from the Te Papa Museum. The drawing appears to have "corrected" arms-tentacles length as is 5.3m with a mantle length of 2.5m.
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Post by theropod on Jan 17, 2014 0:40:29 GMT 5
Ah, I see. Thanks for clarifying that. IÂ’ve read the many strange size figures come from stretching of the tentacles.
Anyway, it does not really matter for its body mass; that one was weighed at 495kg and other specimens are close to 20% larger linearly.
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blaze
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Post by blaze on Jan 17, 2014 3:01:42 GMT 5
It doesn't but it does put in perspective the idea of the squid overwhelming the crocodile with its arms and tentacles, in a half tonne, 5.4m colossal squid* the arms will be about 1.3m and the tentacles some 2.5m, all of them less than 5cm thick more or less.
*The 300kg female was found decomposing so I'm rationalizing that the weight difference is lost of fluids and that stuff.
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Post by coherentsheaf on Jan 17, 2014 3:12:33 GMT 5
It doesn't but it does put in perspective the idea of the squid overwhelming the crocodile with its arms and tentacles, the arms will be about 1.3m and the tentacles some 2.5m, all of them less than 5cm thick more or less. Assuming 5cm diameter this gives 19.6 cm². This times ten gives some quite considerable area. The squid could presumably hold on effectively, but positioning itself with this slow metabolism is probably hard.
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blaze
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Post by blaze on Jan 17, 2014 3:30:10 GMT 5
Yes Something else to add, Cherel, Y. & G. Duhamel 2004. Antarctic jaws: cephalopod prey of sharks in Kerguelen waters. Deep-Sea Res I 51:17-31. Beaks with lower rostral lengths comparable to those of the largest captured squids (39mm) have been found in stomachs of sleeper sharks, the biggest shark in the study was 5m long. Edit: Seems like lower beak length is more variable than I thought, the 495kg actually has a LRL of 42.5mm but I also read from the Te Papa Museum that they measured an smaller specimen while waiting for the big one to be ready, it had a LRL of 40mm, larger than that of the 300kg one from 2003 but this one was only 160kg... Anyway, this is the beak of the 495kg female Could it kill a croc with that?
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Post by coherentsheaf on Jan 17, 2014 4:24:00 GMT 5
Yes Something else to add, Cherel, Y. & G. Duhamel 2004. Antarctic jaws: cephalopod prey of sharks in Kerguelen waters. Deep-Sea Res I 51:17-31. Beaks with lower rostral lengths comparable to those of the largest captured squids (39mm) have been found in stomachs of sleeper sharks, the biggest shark in the study was 5m long. Edit: Seems like lower beak length is more variable than I thought, the 495kg actually has a LRL of 42.5mm but I also read from the Te Papa Museum that they measured an smaller specimen while waiting for the big one to be ready, it had a LRL of 40mm, larger than that of the 300kg one from 2003 but this one was only 160kg... Anyway, this is the beak of the 495kg female Could it kill a croc with that? Interesting question? Could it produce enough force to go through osteoderms and sever the spinal cord? Small squid species ca do that with fish much larger than themselves: I am not sure what this actually implies for Mesonychoteuthis though.
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